“The acquiring of various kinds of information is only one and not the chief of the means and necessities of education; its central aim is the building of the powers of the human mind and spirit, it is the formation, or, as I would prefer to view it, the evoking of knowledge and will and of the power to use knowledge, character, culture, -- that at least if no more” (Sri Aurobindo, 1956/2004, pp. 9-10). Being guided by this ideal, the question of evaluating and assessing student performance and progress becomes a critical one for any institution of integral education.

How do we assess a learner’s growth in the powers of mind and spirit? How do we evaluate the development of mental faculties and skills resulting from the learning experiences in our courses? How do we measure the subtle transformation the learner may have experienced as a result of their deeper contemplation on some of the inspiring content they read in a certain text? How do we be fair to the individualized learning process and pace of each learner? These questions motivate us to carefully consider our evaluation and assessment policies and procedures. We have built-in several qualitative means of assessment throughout different phases of the course in order to continuously evaluate the learner’s progress.

ALIGNING ASSESSMENT WITH LEARNING GOALS

While preparing the detailed syllabi we pay close attention to aligning the learning objectives with the learning activities so that learners progress regularly towards the goals set by the course facilitator. Similarly, the specific learning activities are closely matched with the learning products that the students are required to complete and submit at various points in the course.  This creates an effective feedback loop for the facilitators to evaluate student learning, and at the same time makes the entire learning experience an opportunity for learners to self-assess their progress.

Each learning product is assigned a specific percentage of the total grade in the course. This assures that the learner completes all the assigned activities and submits all the work required to complete a course.

NARRATIVE EVALUATIONS

As per our educational philosophy and values, we do not provide marks or letter grades to assess learner performance. Instead we utilize a system of comprehensive narrative evaluations, which describe in detail learner performance, noting particular skills and strengths and indicating, when necessary, areas for improvement.

Our guiding philosophy of Integral Education is inconsistent with conventional system of examinations where the emphasis is on ‘testing’ how much the learner has memorized or retained the course content. We are rather guided by the ideal that the true meaning of education is ‘to educe’, or ‘to bring forth’ the knowledge that lies hidden in the learner himself or herself. Our role as educators is to facilitate the process of bringing forth this latent knowledge in the learners. Therefore, the system of evaluation that makes most sense for our institution is also one that helps us qualitatively assess the progress made by the learner in this self-directed and facilitator-assisted process of learning.

A critical aspect of our assessment system is that after completing each course learners also write a self-evaluation of their learning. This not only gives them a real opportunity to be reflective of their academic progress, but it also allows them to feel more accountable for their learning.

This system of narrative evaluations works very well in online courses. The self-evaluation form is emailed to the learners as an attachment, which they download, complete and email back to our office.

GRADE EQUIVALENT DEFINITIONS

While we are committed to the pedagogical importance of employing narrative evaluation as its method for the appraisal of student academic work and progress, we provide here the following characterizations for the purposes of providing a basic explanation of how we may assign appropriate letter grade equivalent to different levels of student performance. This will help translate our system of narrative evaluation of student progress in more traditional grading terms.  The designation of an:

“A” grade equivalent is based upon the meeting and exceeding of all basic course requirements and guidelines.   Such work includes well-articulated, consistently thorough and thoughtful contributions in relation to course learning activities and assignments. Original and creative engagement of course topics and subject matter is demonstrated.  Mastery and grasp of course concepts is likewise demonstrated in thought-provoking manner through appropriate and well-crafted written and verbal communications.

“B” grade equivalent is based upon the meeting of all basic course requirements and guidelines.  Such work includes well-articulated and thoughtful contributions to many course issues and in relation to most learning activities.  Course concepts are clearly understood and employed in thorough and in some instances creative manner, although some opportunities to fully develop and explore available opportunities remain missed.

“C” grade equivalent is based upon the acceptable meeting of all course requirements and guidelines but little or nothing more.  A basic understanding of key course concepts is demonstrated although frequently with room remaining for additional elaboration or better-crafted engagement and/or application.

No Credit is based upon not meeting or fulfilling minimum course requirements.  Contributions are either incomplete or prepared with undue haste.  Understanding of course concepts remains uncertain due to grossly inaccurate, superficial or vague representations and/or poorly crafted or ill-considered contributions to course learning activities.

(Note: We are grateful to our colleagues at Antioch University McGregor, Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA for sharing these grade letter equivalent definitions with us. We offer several Master’s level online courses to the students at Antioch University McGregor in such areas as Integral Yoga Psychology, Self-awareness and Transformation, Integral Education, Transpersonal Research Methods, Integral Health and Healing, Integral Social Transformation and Spiritual Traditions of India.)

FORMATIVE AND CONTINUOUS EVALUATION

While the narrative evaluations help us do summative evaluation of student learning, we firmly believe that the students benefit most when they are provided ongoing and formative assessment of their performance. Continuous and formative assessment of student performance is done in various ways including:

• Regular and meaningful interactions between the facilitator and learner in the form of online exchanges,
• Providing constructive feedback to the learners on their responses to discussion questions and course assignments,
• As and when needed, recommending learners to re-write and re-submit some of their written assignments and papers,
• Encouraging learners to think deeper and explore new interpretations and perspectives on the content being discussed.

EVALUATING LEARNER RESPONSES TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

For our internal evaluation of student learning and their ongoing performance, we have also developed broad guidelines to evaluate student contributions to online discussions. Facilitators assess student performance in the class which is then used at the time of writing narrative evaluations at the end of the course.