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Old 01-17-2012, 11:09 AM   #2
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,202
United_States
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Re: Online aikido introduction course

I'm curious: why have you decided to test students? Why not just let them take the course and learn from it?

I ask because testing introduces a set of issues that can thwart your original purpose (instruction), if not carefully managed. Speaking as someone who's developed many online tests, it seems to me that you want to be careful not to let the tail wag the dog, as so often happens with testing. The way these things often go is:
  • Start writing questions to test what you've been teaching
  • Realize that this test-writing stuff is a lot harder than it looks.
  • After a great deal of effort, get your test written.
  • Realize that what you're testing is no longer quite what you're teaching.
  • Adjust what you're teaching to reflect the test.
How they should go:
  • Decide what you want to teach.
  • Articulate, as clearly as possible, the specific skills or knowledge that make up what you want to teach.
  • If possible, decide what's most important and what's less important.
  • Looking at each skill or item of knowledge, think of questions that constitute a valid test of that skill/knowledge, such that:
  • someone who has the skilll/knowledge will get the question right, and
  • someone who does NOT have the skill will get the question wrong
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