Learner Evaluation Tools

Assessment and evaluation can be conducted whenever technology is available.

• Assessing before learning to understand the baseline of the learner.  
• When some learning has taken place formative evaluation can be helpful so educator can change methods or focus.  
• Remediation can also be identified at this point. Summative evaluation using technology can be conducted in a number of ways.  
• When one first thinks about evaluation using technology it seems simple but the subject is very diverse.  
• Evaluation can be from different sources educator-to-learner, peer-to-peer, standardized computer testing, and self-reflection.

This area is very rich to explore and not all concepts can be discussed in one page.  Obviously, whole courses are devoted to evaluation of the learner.  The purpose of this page is to identify key areas the nurse educator can explore for their own use in their learning environment. Just as all educational technology areas, there is constant change. These examples will give the reader methodology ideas and examples so that they can search for themselves and design new methodology ideas.

Objectives and evaluation must match

The educator needs to start with learner objectives.  From the objectives, the verbs should lead to an appropriate method of electronic assessment.  Bristol and Zerwekh (2011), have a table demonstrating how objectives can be matched up with electronic assessments.  An example using this technique can be seen by using the verb, recognizing.  Using short video clips explaining a concept with short quizzes embedded that the learner answers helps with retention and self-evaluation.  An excellent example of this technique is given below by Richard Byrnes.

Online quizzes

Richard Byrnes blog is always an excellent source regarding teaching and technology.  In March, 2014 he wrote a page identifying seven tools for developing and administering quizzes. http://www.freetech4teachers.com/.  His first example is a example of using video as the teaching method with intermittent assessment questions that also give points.  The program is called Bubblr. The example Byrnes gives is heart physiology. Developing a similar program using EKG rhythm strip identification could be a way of learning.  Another reference website is Educatorstechnology.com.  Quite a few quiz programs can be found on this link.  Several would be worthwhile but others may not work for nurse educators.

Audience Response Systems (ARS) A.K.A. = Clickers

ARS can be viewed as a polling mechanism instead of method of getting scores to be counted from the learner. Richard Byrne developed a compare and contrast table for learning survey tools. There are certainly more ARS than identified here on this blog page but I will discuss the ones that I or my students have had some experience.

Turning Point and their clickers is a system that fits well within both academic and healthcare learning environments.  The educator can receive free access and free hardware and the learners pay for their clickers.  It works very well with MSPowerpoint and now MAC.   Several of the University of Indianapolis departments use this technique for polling and recording of quizzes into their internet grading.

Socrative

Identifying quick easy quizzes can be very helpful to the educator.  Socrative has been existence for several years.  I have tested this several times with good success.  This is not sophisticated but can give you a quick assessment of the classes knowledge on a topic.  I have had several educator students use Socrative with good results. The educator sets up a question or questions and the learners are invited to a site to complete their quiz.  This can be anonymous. The program is on the Socrative website so no clickers are needed only access to the website by the educator and learners. There are several other examples such as Poll Everywhere that also work very well. Classmarker is a program I have not tried but there are quite a few features compared to others.  The educator can give up to 100 tests per month but of course not all the bells and whistles are provided with a free version but it may work well for some.

Test Analysis

Analyzing tests can be both and art and a science.  This free program will yield almost, if not all, the analysis results an educator may want.  To explain some of the math and exactly how to run the procedure, view this powerpoint and movie.

Remediation

Since we value our learners in nursing there may be areas of weakness that the learner wish to eliminate. One example in academia is the use of educational testing systems. Two examples that have developed sophisticated methods are Kaplan and ATI which allow for initial testing with remediation modules.  In the past learners relied on review books for NCLEX.  Now students can take practice exams as often as they want.  When problem areas are identified there are optional learning modules on that topic to study.

Video on setting up exams in ACE.

Learner feedback

A faculty member wanted to audio record feedback comments to send to students on papers she had graded.  I found that vocaroo.com is a most efficient and easy way to do this. You simply go to the site. Click Record, Stop and then a URL will pop up and you send the URL to the student. There is no maximum length of the audio recording. This is free. For short recordings with video feedback JING works really well but the length can not be more than 3 minutes. Here is a recording made with a headset which works better than the internal mic.  There is background fan noise that could be eliminated in some cases. 
 

Record and upload audio >>

ePortfolios
A method to allow flexibility in learner input to showcase knowledge could be the use of eportfolios.  The learner can design a format that would fit their specific specialty area.  Along with course and lesson objectives, course output such as papers and presentation can be uploaded to a designated website.  One advantage to this method is that the learner could potentially update the eportfolio similar to a resume.  The web address is then given to their perspective employer for review.  This needs to have the look that one would expect from a health professional.  It have a negative result if the site was not well done.  Universities and healthcare institutions are utilizing this method for grading and promotion purposes. Some learning management systems have built in processes to automatically link learner work to sets of overall program objectives and then to overall institutional objectives.  Processes like this allow for ease of reporting when accrediting bodies need to see data of learner knowledge acquisition. Here is a movie of components of a example not from nursing but public health. If eportfolios are used for specific learner evaluation then specific rubrics would need to be developed to assess the learner's work. Here are two eportfolios of MSN students: Lisa Hane and Renee Latoures. There are programs such as myefolio that can be purchased for $20/year but Blogger can be used for free. Google has instructions on how to begin the process that could be helpful for a nurse educator in designing their own eportfolio or designing a plan for their learners. Google sites is another option for portfolio development.  Here are step by step plans using Google sites.

References:
Bristol, T. & Zerwekh, J (2011).  Essentials of e-learning for nurse educators. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Co.