Informal Assessment Strategies that Help Online Educators Gain Insights into Learners
Online educators continuously try to boost engagement with their students. They create immersive experiences and build content that every learner will enjoy. Every day, they aim to battle online learning fatigue with innovative lessons. But the only way to increase engagement is by understanding their students. First, online teachers must learn a little more about their learners and how they function. If you’re struggling to connect with your online students, we can help. Here’s a look at informal assessment strategies you can use to gain insights into your learners.
Informal Assessment Strategies Educators Should Use for Learner Insights
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Look at Language to Check Understanding
The easiest way to learn more about your students is by monitoring them closely. During live classes, check their body language and facial expressions to see if they have understood the topic. In asynchronous learning situations, read their assignments and monitor the discussion board. If you feel a student is confused or has misunderstood, you should bring it up in the next class. As far as possible, do not single out the learner. Instead, revise the topic and pay attention to their verbal and non-verbal cues.
Ask the Right Questions
When you’re trying to gauge understanding, you need to ask the right kind of questions. Try and pose questions that will check how much they understand and identify any misconceptions. You can also flip the situation and have your students ask you questions. Have students ask you their questions at the end of every class. When your students ask questions, you will quickly identify which concepts are just outside their grasp. You can then adjust your course as required.
Check Their Comfort and Confidence
Most educators stop their lesson to ask students if they have any questions. In most cases, learners will keep mum and let the teacher continue. Instead of this approach, ask students to tell you how confident they feel about the topic. Create a scale that runs from no confidence to high confidence. Learners can use online polls or raise their hands to tell you how they feel. Depending on the results, you can decide on the best way forward.
Measure Engagement
Finally, you need to check how well your informal assessment strategies are doing. Gather data on learner engagement from your online learning platform. Check if students are more engaged or less engaged. If you can, pull data on individuals you think are struggling. Check their engagement trends and assessment results. You can evaluate the data and decide on a plan of action to engage more learners.
If you’d like to create engaging online courses and gain learner insights, you can sign up on TG Campus. Our platform provides all the tools you need to test your students and check their progress. Our robust testing and analytics tools enable you to check each learner’s understanding and identify any problem areas. With TG Campus, you can quickly build courses based on the latest online learning trends and boost engagement with your students.
