Alternative Assessments for Online Instruction: The Move Away From Proctoring and Timed Testing

By Annette Finley-Croswhite

Faculty developers throughout the nation are recommending that while teaching online during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is best for teachers to focus on alternatives to timed testing, especially synchronous small-window timed testing that is structured for 50-75 minutes.

Many college and university instructors, however, don't understand the complexities our students encounter with access to the Internet or sufficient bandwidth to connect in Zoom meetings or to upload assignments.

In my household while sheltering in place, I am witnessing some of the hardships college students face. Four of us are online constantly: me, my high-schooler, and two college students who attend a different institution (not ODU). I have excellent Internet at my house, but it is often not enough to accommodate the upload function that the two college students need to use as a part of the timed testing two of their instructors require. My college students have been extremely frustrated with timed testing, and their experience makes me wonder about students facing larger Internet problems than the ones at my home where I pay for premium Internet.

Shortly we will be preparing our final exams. Please consider the many alternatives to timed testing. Below is a list developed by faculty developers at Rutgers University, Virginia Commonwealth University and Old Dominion University.

1. Multiple quizzes: The use of quizzes gives students many opportunities to master material.
2. Group quizzes: Have students work in groups to develop quiz questions and then have the groups swap questions. Ask groups to answer questions devised by a group other than their own.
3. Multiple-choice questions: Students can be given a multiple-choice exam. In addition to having them identify correct answers from a list, ask them to explain their correct answers in text form with elaboration on why the answers not chosen are incorrect.
4. Open-book assignments: Online instructors have been using open-book assignments for years. This kind of assignment can be more analytical with greater outcome expectations given that students have access to learning materials and must organize them into a structure suitable for their discipline. Expectations can also be greater for grammar, spelling, and organization.
5. Take-home exams: A take-home exam is of course an open-book exam, but it also might involve other kinds of activities such as the use of labs and performance assignments that can then be written up to reflect the "process" of design, construction, experiment, performance, execution, and learning.
6. Essay exams: These exams can be based on case studies, literature reviews, "wicked" problems to be solved, document analyses, or other kinds of scenarios requiring integration, analysis, contextualization and application to encourage critical thinking.
7. Window for testing: For open-book, take-home and essay exams, allow a large window for the students to produce the material. Leaving an exam open for several days allows students flexibility with their own time as they navigate all the responsibilities they face while sheltering in place and gives them greater options for uploading materials.
8. Annotated bibliography or literature review: Have students research the literature on a given topic and prove mastery in the annotations they craft for that material in a bibliography or in an essay they produce about the literature within a given discipline.
9. ePortfolio: Have students keep an ePortfolio of their work throughout the semester and then write a final essay introducing that work and explaining its relevance. If you didn't begin the semester using ePortfolio, consider it for summer online courses.
10. Real-world assignments: Develop an assignment that ties your discipline to the current COVID-19 crisis. Students can combine attention to newspaper coverage of the crisis with more specific disciplinary-focused material. The "real-world" aspect can be focused on any contemporary problem.
11. Optional projects: Convert the final exam to a final cumulative project. Suggestions include designing a public service announcement, brochure, fact sheet, executive summary, scientific abstract, or interactive map, or producing a demonstration video or presentation, poem, play, piece of music or artwork, website, lesson plan, or even an interactive game based on course content. Students can also be asked to design charts, graphs, experiments or diagrams and explain their meaning. A "final exam" could include one or more of the examples listed above to cover course content.
12. Reflection: Whatever the discipline, work reflection into the final assignment. Students can even reflect on their experience of the movement to online instruction and the different learning modes they engaged with during the second half of the semester.