In 2020, a few months after the pandemic, I worked on a contract for the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to create a course focused on online assessment. I taught the course three times before it transitioned into a decentralized model and became a standard part of the suite of professional learning opportunities that COL offers to partner institutions seeking to increase their capacity to offer online learning. Last I checked it was adopted by the University of Belize, Caribbean Maritime University, Ministry of Education and National Reconciliation at Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sam Sharpe Teachers College in Jamaica, Namibian College of Open and Distance Learning, and Cyril Potter College of Education in Guyana. As part of this effort, I wrote a book chapter describing lessons learned, and it’s now been published. Below is the abstract and citation, with links to the open access book:

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the design, development and lessons learned from the implementation of ten offerings of the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth’s (VUSSC) Designing and Developing Online Assessments (DDOA) course. Designed for post-secondary teachers, instructors and educators, this online course was developed in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, and first delivered in September 2020, to help educators around the Commonwealth explore online assessment practices and principles. The self-paced course typically took six weeks to complete and required approximately five hours of independent work per week. It was ungraded and consisted of a range of learner activities including readings, podcasts, practical work, discussions and self-directed work. Its design focused on four principles: flexibility, trust, relevance, and localisation. Given its timing, it prioritised helping adult learners complete the course, or as many parts of it as they deemed relevant to their work. This chapter describes the four principles and explains how each one was reflected in the design of the course. It also describes how and why the course transitioned from a centralised version to a distributed model of offerings for educators.

Citation

Veletsianos, G. (2025). Professional Learning for Teachers and Educators across the Commonwealth: Designing Online Assessments. In Orange, B. et al. (Eds), Innovative Models and Practices in Teacher Development: Case Studies from the Commonwealth (pp. 112-122). Commonwealth of Learning. https://doi.org/10.56059/11599/5700