ABSTRACT
The global pandemic compelled educators to rapidly switch in-person classrooms to online platforms. Although learning management systems, applications, and platforms (EdTech) allowed school divisions to maintain schooling in a global pandemic, many pedagogical practices encouraged online do not reflect educators’ understanding of the purpose of education. Online, functionality often dictates teachers’ pedagogical and curricular choices, impedes relationships in the classroom, and regresses assessment practices. This chapter explores how the sudden move of classes to online platforms degraded assessment practices. To do so, data from an interview-based study conducted by two of the authors is placed in conversation with the current literature on assessment. The teacher participants in this study spoke of ways their practices online did not reflect their own understanding of sound assessment. The functionality, or lack thereof, of EdTech motivated regressive assessment practices. The chapter concludes by offering alternative approaches to thinking about and enacting online assessment, sharing pedagogical practices that have enabled authentic and meaningful assessment while working with and through online teaching environments. In particular, these examples show how to support teachers seeking to centre students and learning in online environments.
