I believe assessment is very important. It is not only a way for professors to check students’ learning results but also an effective tool for evaluating our own learning progress.

Firstly, I think this course is rich in self-assessment. We need to blog and reflect almost every week. This is an effective learning tool that helps me stay on track to accomplish my weekly tasks. In addition, we often have meetings with our study partners or comment on other classmates’ blogs, which enables me to learn from posts by other students and identify what I may have neglected. At the same time, it also allows us to gather our ideas together, which helps us better complete the tasks. Additionally, formative assessment is included in this course, which I have encountered in previous online courses. I think it is a good learning method because it gives us an opportunity to gain a better understanding of relevant knowledge points. Formative assessment is provided after identifying deficiencies and mistakes, giving us immediate opportunities to learn and improve.

The video “Why Grades Shouldn’t Exist” deeply impressed me because grades have always been very confusing for me. I am from China, which has a very merit-based education system. From elementary school onwards, I paid more attention to what was going to be on the test rather than what I had learned or wanted to learn. I think this is a very serious problem, as it can lead to a lack of interest in learning and make it easy to forget the knowledge that has been learned. However, it may be that grades alone help teachers better assess student learning, which is why, in this course, we will also grade each assignment.

Many assessments related to this lesson are mentioned in “Assessment Strategies for Online Learning”. First of all, flexibility and choice are the most obvious. Since this class does not need to be taught in real time, I can choose the learning time and environment that suit me best. For example, I like to study at night with quiet music. Additionally, constructivist learning approaches align well with this course. They emphasize that learning is an active and constructive process in which learners build new knowledge on the basis of existing knowledge through interaction and collaboration.

This course is very different from most other courses; it offers a higher degree of autonomy and can be better connected with our daily lives. For example, I often watch the course videos and do the required readings at the beginning of the week, then finish the blog during the last few days. This way, I can combine what I learned from the videos and readings with something in my life, which helps me gain a better understanding.