The Pitfalls in Assessment Practices in Distance Learning

Abstract

The assessment of learning and the assessment for learning are considered as an integral part of learning process. They provide information to improve the educational instructions and to boost the students’ performances. It is a critical aspect of teaching and learning process and it requires teachers and learners to be prepared for the whole situation. The assessment is a complex process and its implementation poses many challenges to teachers. Online tools and learning management systems (LMS) help to overcome most of these challenges. During the COVID-19 pandemic, almost all schools and universities switched to distance learning and teachers had to change their way of teaching. However, many problems arose from this situation; The "new" teaching mode raised many discussions and needs to be analyzed thoroughly. In this paper, we discuss the usage of distance learning resources during the lock-down and the issues it generated. We focus on the assessment process in the circumstances of COVID-19. For the purpose of this study, future teachers were surveyed after their experience with distance teaching. It seems that platforms providing interactive assessment and those allowing automatic evaluation of learners are more required than others.