Assessment Practices For Effective Rural Community Literacy Blended e-Learning Outcomes

Abstract

Education is a vital part of every sphere of life. Without education nothing can be realised. Education helps to build relationships. Education starts with literacy including numeracy. Education is the process of holistic development of the human capital. Thus, getting educated through whatever mode requires that knowledge and skills be acquired. As part of human capital development, rural community literacy (including numeracy) programme assists rural adult population to acquire knowledge and skills to fit into the world of work and so make meaningfully contribution to society. This may be done through blended (in-person and e-learning) mode. Literacy programme prepares the rural adult community members for small scale entrepreneurship for self-reliance and meaningful contribution to community and national development. Literacy education helps the unlettered rural adult to interact with other people profitably and also to transact business without much communication and computing constraints. In facilitating learning, learning must be seen to have actually taken place. Assessment is the means through which this is done. There are specific assessment practices that will promote community blended literacy programme. There are three domains of learning: cognitive (intellect), the affective (soft skills) and psycho-productive (the application) skills. These domains must be meaningful embedded in any learning situation. Consequently, any useful assessment practice must take cognisance of the three domains to engender effective learning. Therefore, this paper discussed assessment practices that can engender learning in in blended literacy and numeracy: portfolio assessment, peer-assessment which makes learners to learn together, self-assessment and teacher-guided peer-assessment. The paper proposed that when concurrent assessment practices are integrated into the modified blended community learning process, they would effectively engender learning outcomes.