Student
Assessment
As Free World U strives to become a leading educational
resource on the Internet, we are developing a strategy to incorporate student
assessment functionality into our site. Our flashcard system utilizes
self-reporting by students to summarize their progress through the curriculum.
Of course, this progress is only as valid as a student's self-reporting of their
understanding of the material. Understandably, educational leaders,
parents, and in some cases students themselves, want a more objective evaluation.
Our system is centered on the premise that students should progress through the
curriculum at their own pace. We have no time restraints on our cards
yet we are confident students will progress through our curriculum faster than
other systems. If it takes 20 passes through the calculus cards to master
the subject, so be it. We feel it will be more than made up for by the
time the student saves by NOT having to repeatedly go through the
material he/she knows already. Therefore, we see no reason to
test assess students until AFTER they self-report knowing the material.
We are developing a system of student assessment that adequately measures a
student's comprehension of the material he/she has reported learning while
maintaining a parent's critical role in the homeschooling process. Parents (in the
case of homeschoolers) will have access to a complete progress report of their
children's advancement in the curriculum. Parents with multiple children
using the system will be able to review the progress of all children from one
central "control panel". Which subtopics does the student
report mastering? Which subjects are completed? The parent will then
have the option of asking the student to complete a multiple choice subset of
flashcards. These cards will cover only material the student has reported
mastering. The "quizzes" will be timed and graded. Parents can act on
these grades as they see fit. One option would be to reset the
subtopics/subjects that a student displays less than "acceptable" understanding
of.
This would require the student to go back in and complete the material
again. The system will allow the automatic resetting of subtopics if the
parent chooses to do so.
Our assessment procedures are in the early stages of development and we want to
know what our users would like to see in this facet of our system. What
information would parents like to have? What sorts of "quizzes" would
students feel most comfortable with? Please email us at
office@freeworldu.org or call us
at (323)258-1616 with your suggestions and ideas.