Dear friends,
Since starting the CLAA, we have made use of online quizzes and exams to help with assessment. These online assessments have given us many benefits, but there are also significant problems caused by them.
First, online quizzes require that children spend time on the internet. Many parents feel uncomfortable with this–and reasonably so. It is very difficult to supervise online actvity; sometimes impossible.
Second, online quizzes require irrational answer-key grading that can be very frustrating. To have a student submit a 50 question quiz and have questions marked wrong before an extra space was added after a word, or a simple type was made is just annoying.
Third, online quizzes are slow for teachers to develop, bogging down course development. It can take hours to produce a challenging, intelligent online quiz and that hinders the publication of many courses–unnecessarily.
Fourth, online quizzes restrict the kinds of questions that can be asked, leaving many important concepts unchecked which need to be checked.
Fifth, online quizzes do not allow students the opportunity to develop their thinking and writing skills. Answering fill-in, true/false and multiple choice questions are certainly better than nothing, but it’s much better for students to read a question, reflect on their lesson, and write their own answer in their own words. This allows all assessments to serve multiple purposes: we can check knowledge of lesson content, but we can also work on grammar, spelling, reasoning, rhetoric, etc.
I could go on. :)
Moving forward in the CLAA, I am going to be moving to written assessments for assignments, quizzes and exams. This will offer many benefits to students and parents:
First, parents will have flexibility in handling student work. Parents can have students type online and submit assignments if they wish, or they can have students prepare typed documents offline, or they can have students work by hand on notebook paper. They can do all three of these if they choose. Premium students will also be permitted to submit copies of written work by mail, email or fax if they wish.
Second, I will be able to quickly publish courses so that students can work through them with no delays. I will post assessments over time that are increasingly challenging, beginning with “primary assessments” to allow students to move along immediately, and adding “mastery assessments” in the future as time allows. I can add short-answer written questions for courses like Latin Vocabulary, mid-length comprehension questions for history and philosophy, exercises for mathematics, essays for philosophy, and so on. There’s no limit to how thoroughly I can assess student work.
Third, there are some courses that simply require hand-written work. Greek studies and high school mathematics are very difficult to complete by typing and not worth the trouble. Allowing students (and teachers!) to handle these assignments by hand will be very helpful.
Therefore, in 2024-2025, I will be publishing written assessments for most or all courses, including quizzes and exams. PDF file uploads will be allowed for all assessments so that offline work may be submitted. We will be moving away from online quizzes as much as possible.
It is my goal to make it possible to study in the Classical Liberal Arts Academy offline. Our development required us to work online, but I believe we’ve reached a point where this is no longer necessary. What, exactly, this will look like is yet to be determined–but I’m working on it.
Any questions or suggestions are welcome.
God bless you all,
Mr. William C. Michael, O.P.
Headmaster
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
