How does blended learning change assessment practices?

Blended learning is a combination of face-to-face and online learning, and is growing in practice in many schools across North America. Blended learning provides engaging and meaningful learning experiences for today’s students. It allows for greater personalization of learning for each student that can include creative approaches to learning, teaching, and assessment. This project focused on how changes in assessment need to take place to parallel changes introduced in a blended learning school model. If a blended learning model emphasized greater flexibility, choice, and personalization of learning, then assessment practices need to do the same. In order to do this, assessment needs to be directly correlated to the learning outcomes of each course. This allows students to take different approaches to meeting the desired outcomes for the course. An assessment template tool was shared with grade 9 teachers and used with the introduction of a new blended learning model. This assessment template encouraged teachers to assess directly to the learning outcomes. The outcomes in the assessment template were directly taken from the new BC curriculum for grade 9. Student were required to create a web site at the beginning of the school year to track their learning and self-assess how they thought they were meeting learning outcomes covered in their classes. The student web site model can be found at https://sites.google.com/a/ncsnanaimo.com/learning-outcomes-site-model/. The assessment template tools for Math 9, Science 9, Humanities 9 (Social Studies and English), and French 9 can be found at https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B8sIDW9Sdjs7cW5aYUdZYXpQZ2c.