After a dozen different studies in the past two years, Mt. Royal is asking less about technology per se and more about pedagogical processes. For example, a Mt. Royal English Composition class added e-mail study partners for peer review. Assessment revealed that although the enhancement worked logistically, faculty needed to provide more reasons for students to use the online peer editing process. In the subsequent semester, assessment provided evidence that faculty remedied the issue by tying the exercises to the intended learning context, the editing process, the use of technology and career practice. Similarly, at Rochester Institute of Technology, faculty found that online discussion creates value when it is used to more efficiently support student project teams or to replace class meetings.
Faculty start to question what is working.
We are now focusing on what learning is, how we describe it, and what that means for current approaches to how we measure for learning. However, Ehrmann believes that the number of people interested in using assessment to improve and change what they do is increasing. Striving for excellence in the growing number of online distance learning and Web-based courses is fueling the interest in technology assessment. After one or two times around you begin to scratch the surface. Using the Flashlight Current Student Inventory, faculty discovered after the first offering of the course that students hardly watched the videos and that e-mail and threaded discussion had a higher impact.