How To Assess Online Instruction

The iNACOL teaching standards are an excellent overview of how educators in the 21st century may utilize technology, online learning, and new strategies for pedagogy and content for their instruction.  A range of professional online teachers, instructional designers, administrators, researchers, and course developers produced these standards, to offer a series guidelines for assessing online instruction and related efforts.

The standards are to be applied and utilized to assess instruction, to meet the needs of each unique learning organization and institution, as they see fit.

Each main standard has a subset of related expectations for teacher knowledge and understanding, teacher abilities, and corresponding rating scales for the performance of educators.

The following list represents the overarching National Standards for Quality Online Teaching:

  • Standard A – The online teacher knows the primary concepts and structures of effective online instruction and is able to create learning experiences to enable student success.
  • Standard B – The online teacher understands and is able to use a range of technologies, both existing and emerging, that effectively support student learning and engagement in the online environment.
  • Standard C – The online teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, application, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment.
  • Standard D – The online teacher promotes student success through clear expectations, prompt responses, and regular feedback.
  • Standard E – The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use.
  • Standard F – The online teacher is cognizant of the diversity of student academic needs and incorporates accommodations into the online environment.
  • Standard G – The online teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments in online learning environments in ways that ensure validity and reliability of the instruments and procedures.
  • Standard H – The online teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of the learning goals.
  • Standard I – The online teacher demonstrates competency in using data from assessments and other data sources to modify content and to guide student learning.
  • Standard J – The online teacher interacts in a professional, effective manner with colleagues, parents, and other members of the community to support students’ success.
  • Standard K – The online teacher arranges media and content to help students and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively in the online environment.

You may find and review iNACOL’s comprehensive National Standards for Quality Online Teaching and the corresponding rating scales here.

Now that you’ve seen the iNACOL standards, please do some research and submit written reflection on articles related to at least 3 different areas of assessment for online and blended instruction. Check out this rubric for topic ideas.

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