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MOOC Testing – Distractors

December 2, 2013 By DegreeofFreedom in Filed Under: Testing and Assessment

A friend recently gave a presentation at a local Ted event, and while his was my first interface with the whole bean-bag-chair, Google-Glass, clearly-of-West-Coast-origin Ted experience, it did remind me that I still needed to watch this Ted presentation by Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera.  She gave the talk in 2012, back when MOOC-mania was […]

MOOCs and Grading – Interpreting Obviousity Results

November 1, 2013 By DegreeofFreedom in Filed Under: Testing and Assessment

Getting back to the Obviousity scores we looked at a couple of days ago, the lessons to be drawn even from my simple experiment go beyond just reinforcing the need to follow the professional item-writing principles, like those I recommended a few months back. Yes, MOOC developers should avoid true/false questions and do a better […]

MOOCs and Grading – Obviousity Results

October 30, 2013 By DegreeofFreedom in Filed Under: Testing and Assessment

OK, so I ran my Obviousity Index test on several of the classes I’ve taken (not enough for a comprehensive scientific analysis, but enough to inform this conversation). Remember from yesterday that the Obviousity Index is derived from looking at MOOC courses where the final grade is based entirely on how a student performs in […]

MOOCs and Grading – The Obviousity Index

October 29, 2013 By DegreeofFreedom in Filed Under: Testing and Assessment

As many readers know, my background in professional test design has left me sensitive to MOOC quizzes and exams that sometimes seem thrown together as afterthoughts. This is because in the best designed courses, instruction and assessment (whether in the form of quizzes, final exams, graded papers and homework assignments) work hand in hand to […]

MOOC Assignments – Screwing Up

October 23, 2013 By DegreeofFreedom in Filed Under: Testing and Assessment

I can’t tell you how exciting it’s been to actually blow some questions in my most recent MOOC assignment. I’ve talked before about how assessment and other scored exercises tend to get short shrift within many MOOCs.  In some cases, this manifests itself as test questions or homework assignments that are ambiguously worded or confusing.  […]

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Latest Published Writing

Remote Learning Begs the Question:  Must Lectures Be So Long? (EdSurge – May 25, 2020)

It’s Time to Get Serious About Teaching Critical Thinking (Inside Higher Education – March 2, 2020)

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Is Education Entering an “Age of Alternatives”? (EdSurge – March 2, 2019)

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