(Foreign Economic and w88) "Cloud" last semester final exam how to ensure quality
(Source: "China Education News" 2020-06-24 Page 4)
Log in to the w88 casino's Rain Classroom APP, upload your ID photo, and point the camera at face recognition... On June 7, Han Dongchen, a 2019 student from the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University who took the "Circuits Principles" exam, entered the "cloud" exam room 15 minutes early to prepare for the first online final exam in his life. More than 480 students from across the country and even around the world were taking the exam simultaneously with him, and they needed to answer the questions online within 2 hours and 10 minutes.
This is destined to be a special and unforgettable exam experience. Since June, colleges and universities across the country have entered exam week one after another. Affected by the epidemic, Tsinghua University,w88 casino, Wuhan University and many other universities across the country have made it clear that final exams will be conducted remotely. What challenges will online final exams bring to schools? How to ensure the fairness of exams? The reporter conducted an interview on this.
Fully consider uncontrollable factors and prepare emergency plans
At 8 o'clock in the morning, the "Circuits Principles" exam officially started. Looking at the test questions on the computer screen, Han Dongchen wrote down the answers on the paper, then scanned the QR code with his mobile phone, took a photo and uploaded the answers. The computer camera was turned on throughout the entire process and random snapshots were taken.
Based on the reality of epidemic prevention and control, in May this year, Tsinghua University issued a notice to adjust the final assessment work, proposing that teachers can use remote examinations and other methods to conduct final assessments based on course requirements and course characteristics, as well as the actual classroom situation. For courses that cannot conduct remote examinations under special circumstances, teachers can apply for on-site examinations after students return to w88 casino.
“Examinations are undoubtedly the hardest standard to test the effectiveness of online teaching this semester.” Yu Xinjie, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University and leader of the w88 casino’s online teaching guidance expert group, said that this semester, more than 600 courses at Tsinghua University will take online final exams, accounting for about a quarter of all courses. The exam week is now over and everything is going smoothly and orderly.
According to Song Chaoyang, Director of the Academic Affairs Office of the Undergraduate w88 casino of Wuhan University, under the requirement of "suspension of classes without suspension of learning", examinations are an indispensable part to realize the complete process of online teaching. They can not only obtain reliable learning achievement test data, but also play a very good role in supervising students' active learning.
“Compared with high-stakes selective exams, the risk level of college final exams is lower and can provide a good experimental field for online assessment.” said Zhong Baichang, a professor at the w88 casino of Educational Information Technology at South China Normal University.
In February this year, the Ministry of Education issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Organization and Management of Online Teaching in General Institutions of Higher Education During the Period of Epidemic Prevention and Control" which clearly stated that the quality of online learning and offline classroom teaching should be substantially equivalent. It is necessary to announce management measures such as course resource quality requirements, online teaching classroom discipline and examination discipline requirements, and student learning evaluation measures. Guide teachers to carry out online teaching activities and conduct learning assessments. Encourage and support qualified colleges and universities to accelerate the development of a batch of distinctive, representative and sufficient online test questions.
Yu Xinjie said that in order to carry out the online final exam smoothly, the Tsinghua University Online Teaching Guidance Expert Group held repeated discussions with various departments and teachers to understand their different needs. On this basis, they formed "Recommendations for Conducting Online Remote Final Exams" for the reference of teachers. Eight teachers in the expert group gave ideas and needs for the final remote exam based on the courses they offered, as well as summary reports on online midterm exams for individual courses. At the same time, the w88 casino organized and carried out 3 remote final exam trainings, covering more than 700 teachers and teaching assistants.
"All the 4258 courses offered this semester will be conducted remotely for final examinations, and specific forms include online testing, submission of papers, work design, etc." Song Chaoyang said frankly that there was some controversy within the w88 casino about whether to take the exam and what form of exam to take. , through holding multiple online seminars and formulating plans, a consensus was gradually reached. "We communicated individually with individual teachers who had concerns. For example, some teachers asked for calculation questions and it was inconvenient for students to answer questions online. We suggested that the calculation results can be presented in the form of options."
As for how to choose exam types for courses of different natures, the exam guidelines formulated by the w88 casino have clear instructions. For courses with strong theoretical content such as basic courses and compulsory courses, online open-book exams can be adopted; small class teaching Courses that focus on discussion-based teaching, such as general courses, elective courses, etc., can submit results online; some special types of courses, such as foreign language courses, are usually taught in small classes, and online oral examinations and other similar online defense methods can be used for final examinations.
“This is the first time that the w88 casino has conducted such a large-scale online examination. There is not much mature experience to follow from the proposition to the invigilation. Everyone is crossing the river by feeling the stones.” Jiang Xianling, director of the Academic Affairs Office of the w88 casino, told reporters that the w88 casino began to formulate a work plan two months in advance, instructing teachers to strengthen process assessment, and appropriately reduce the proportion of final examination scores based on the usual assessment frequency. At the same time, exam guides and operation guides for each platform are released, and one or two mock tests are required before the official exam. A network technology team consisting of more than 40 people is also on standby to provide services to teachers.
Charge laptops and mobile phones, set up mobile phone stands, and uninstall software that may pop up malicious small windows... Before each exam, Han Dongchen will carefully check the exam equipment. Still, minor situations arise. During the calculus exam, he suddenly found that the camera along the way had a black screen, and Han Dongchen immediately reported it to the invigilator.
“Compared with offline exams, there are many uncontrollable factors in online exams, which is a big test for students’ psychological quality. "Han Dongchen said that when answering questions, you must also consider the exam environment, such as paying attention to whether the monitoring equipment is normal, whether the equipment is operated correctly and the answers are submitted in a timely manner, etc.
Online exams have higher requirements on software and hardware conditions. Some universities have made corresponding plans for special situations that may arise. In response to emergencies such as network failures at candidates' homes, Wuhan University adopts a breakpoint-continuation method. If the exam is interrupted, students must connect online within the specified time. Five breakpoints are allowed. If the exam is exceeded or exceeds the limit, students must retake the exam. Tsinghua University has prepared a dual-platform solution. If the platform system fails, you can switch to the backup platform to continue completing the exam.
Promote the quality of education and teaching through online examinations
The reporter learned that several major examination platforms currently used by colleges and universities have launched proctoring modes, such as using cameras to take random snapshots and monitor students' screen-cutting operations. The teacher can monitor the students' answering status in the background and determine the results of the camera capture. Some courses that require higher proctoring requirements adopt a dual-monitoring operation method. While the camera is turned on on the computer screen, students must set up their mobile phones at the side and rear and use the mobile phone cameras to take pictures simultaneously.
In terms of how to compose papers, many platforms support the shuffle function, which means disrupting the order of question numbers and options, or supporting random selection of questions from the question bank, which means that it is difficult for students to plagiarize and correct answers.
“The special experience of this online exam provides an opportunity for the construction of academic style. The w88 casino should further strengthen integrity education, cultivate students’ awareness of awe of rules, and tighten their minds. "Jiang Xianling said.
Whether students from poor families can meet the software and hardware requirements for online exams is also an issue that colleges and universities need to consider. Zhong Baichang believes that even low-stakes course examinations always involve educational fairness. In terms of examination evaluation, it is necessary to make a personalized design. It is possible to provide alternative examination methods and questions for a small number of candidates with poor hardware and network conditions based on their learning conditions during online teaching. Try to make it possible for one person to "try" one at a time. For example, these students can be allowed to answer by phone, WeChat voice, etc., or submit research or design works by email.
Is the w88 casino doing its best to help students solve practical problems encountered in online learning? Do teachers take fairness and justice as the starting point and strive to seek scientific and reasonable examination and evaluation rules? According to Yu Xinjie, all students have personal experience of these concepts and actions. These are both subtle and direct curriculum ideology and politics.
"It is more critical to change the thinking of propositions and improve the quality of propositions." Yu Xinjie took the "Principles of Circuits" proposition he taught as an example. He canceled the fill-in-the-blank questions in the offline exam, set up seven major questions, and set a fixed answering time for each question. After everyone completed one question in the same time period, they moved on to the next question at the same time. "The test questions are relatively difficult, and the test focuses on the ability to analyze and solve problems. Although it is an open-book test, students cannot find the answers online."
Jiang Xianling believes that online exams can adopt two proposition ideas: one is to increase the number of questions, which is suitable for courses with standard answers; the other is to make the form of questions more flexible, especially liberal arts courses are suitable for some comprehensive and open-ended questions, which not only increases the difficulty of students cheating, but also encourages students to jump out of mechanical memory, propose new ideas, and cultivate innovative thinking skills.
"Examinations serve teaching. Teachers and students should enhance their sense of gain in teaching and learning, and in seeking and gaining knowledge." Song Chaoyang believes that the process from online teaching to online examinations actually forces teachers and students to change their traditional education and teaching concepts and view teaching and education with innovative and open development concepts. After you gradually become accustomed to the online method, there may be many changes. For example, assessments can be conducted multiple times, which is helpful to discover deficiencies and make up for shortcomings and strengths and weaknesses. When the exam is no longer the only goal of getting high scores, the role of checking for omissions and filling vacancies will be highlighted, and the quality of education will naturally be improved. ”
Yu Xinjie also believes that online and offline examinations are only different in evaluation methods. How to use online examinations to promote the improvement of education and teaching quality is the goal. He said that by carefully designing and implementing online exams and continuously improving the quality of the questions, it will help further improve the validity of the evaluation and improve the reliable measurement of students' learning effectiveness. The online examination system can also be fully integrated with the online teaching system to achieve a full-platform online education environment, helping students achieve a traceable learning process of preview, lectures, review, and testing.
Zhong Baichang believes that online exams can be "broken into parts", increasing the number of assessments and scores, and combined with learning behavior data from online platforms for comprehensive evaluation; they can also be "broken into parts" and using open and comprehensive project tasks or short papers for assessment.
“More importantly, summarizing the experience and effects of online exams, reflecting on the scope and scope of application of online exams, and exploring a combination of online and offline assessment methods will provide a more complete solution for comprehensively evaluating teaching effects and talent training quality, thus benefiting This forces the ‘quality revolution’ in teaching to develop in depth.” Zhong Baichang said that the focus of online examinations ranges from the examination of knowledge memory to the cultivation of abilities, which itself puts forward higher requirements for teaching methods and quality. Text-based or skill-training teaching will not be able to meet the requirements of the new evaluation method.
Online examinations will play a greater role in the future
Is the online exam just a special product to deal with the epidemic? With the deepening of online examination practice, teachers have more thoughts.
"Online exams are more expensive and have greater uncertainties. Future final exams may still be offline, but in future process assessments, online assessments have great potential." As one of the first batch of MOOCs in China "Crab eater", in 2013, Yu Xinjie took the lead in building Tsinghua University's first MOOC "Circuit Principles". Now he uses the "Rain Classroom" tool to teach, and will set 6-8 practice questions in each class, allowing students to complete online submissions within a time limit.
“Using online teaching tools, process assessment is actually everywhere. In the future, the weight and proportion of process assessment can be appropriately increased.” Yu Xinjie said.
In Zhong Baichang’s view, the learning diagnosis function of online examinations can be fully utilized, and weak links in students’ learning can be discovered through examinations, providing a reference for improving subsequent online and offline teaching, and pushing targeted learning resources and learning guidance to some students whose learning and examination scores are not satisfactory. Especially those online examination platforms with complete evaluation functions can help teachers conduct macro and micro performance analysis and provide accurate evaluation results and learning suggestions.
Jiang Xianling has also benefited from online tests. This semester she teaches an international finance course. The process assessment includes 6 assignments and a midterm exam, with 50 objective questions in each test. "The online teaching platform can help teachers analyze homework, obtain first-hand data, and understand students' mastery of knowledge points. They can provide targeted explanations to students in the next class, which provides a reference for the implementation of flipped classroom."
At the same time, Jiang Xianling believes that at present, some teachers are quite arbitrary in their evaluation of daily performance. They either use students' attendance rate as the main reference basis, or rely on their subjective impressions of students, lacking scientific and reasonable evaluation standards. Adopting online assessment method can make daily results have evidence to rely on.
“With the high risk of the epidemic still existing, online examinations, like online teaching, will enter a new normal. "In Zhong Baichang's view, the current online examinations still need to be improved. For example, the system side lacks a specialized examination system and question bank, and the online learning platform does not capture and mine data on students' procedural learning behaviors enough; the teacher side not only has high bandwidth requirements because of the large number of exams, but also has low video proctoring efficiency; the student side is limited by hardware and network conditions, and there are always candidates who cannot meet the requirements of online exams.
Regarding the effective development of online examinations in the future, Zhong Baichang believes that in addition to technological improvements, there is also a special need to change the evaluation concept, from knowledge-based testing to evaluation based on learning process data and project works, from single-subject evaluation to multi-subject evaluation, etc. In addition, it is also very important to make adaptive choices based on local conditions. Different forms of online examinations should be chosen for courses with strong theoretical nature and courses with strong practical nature.
"It turns out that many teachers have 'cyberphobia'. After this practice from online teaching to online exams, they began to actively embrace information technology and plan to incorporate it into the normalized education and teaching process in the future." Since online teaching, Song Chaoyang is delighted with the change in teachers' attitudes towards network technology. "After the epidemic is over, we cannot and should not go back to the past. We must see opportunities from crises and use modern information technology to further promote education and teaching reform."
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