Page 87 - Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting in Ontario Schools. First Edition, Covering Grades 1 to 12. 2010

CHAPTER 9 | e-learning
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E-LEARNING
• allowing all students greater flexibility and choice in completing the requirements for the Ontario Secondary School Diploma;
• providing additional options for credit recovery (see Chapter 10);
• providing alternative formats for the delivery of courses to meet student needs (e.g., the needs of students who are under suspension or expulsion, or who may be unable to attend because of physical or mental illness or other special circumstances);
• providing students with the opportunity to take an e-learning course in order to develop the skills needed to succeed in online learning at the postsecondary level or online training in industry.
Online credit courses are provided by the Ministry of Education through the provincial LMS
and are delivered by school boards across the province. School boards select courses they wish to offer from a list of courses available on the ministry website (at http://edu.gov.on.ca/elearning/ courses2009_10.html), customize them to meet students’ needs and local needs, and then assign their own teachers to teach them using a wide range of collaborative and administrative tools provided in the LMS. In some cases, students from other boards may also be enrolled.
Online courses meet the same rigorous assessment and evaluation standards as courses taught in traditional classrooms. This is achieved through:
• the design of courses and their related assessment and evaluation instruments and strategies;
• the variety and robustness of tools within the learning management system, such as chats, threaded discussions, blogs, whiteboards, quizzes, student tracking tools, and teacher feedback tools;
• provisions for teacher mediation of e-learning courses (including allowing teachers to modify the course content to meet their students’ needs), and for teacher training related to the delivery of online courses;
• implementation strategies put in place by school boards and teacher training provided by the ministry.
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