EVALUATION OF LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN DISTANCE LEARNING

Abstract

Learning in higher education has been discussed in social and academic debates due to the considerable increase in the number of admission spots in public universities. One relevant factor in this debate is the learning evaluation, which is related to the new context of higher education both in Brazil and in the world: the rise of distance learning. This new mode of education has been raising relevant questions, since teaching and learning in virtual environments have their own characteristics and challenges, mainly because of technological transformations that are shaping human and social relations over the past decades. These considerations are the research subject of this study, which aims to analyze traditional forms of evaluation, as well as its current trends, through an analysis of its applicability in the contemporary context of distance learning in higher education. The goal is to show that the evaluation is a mechanic and formal instrument, which is neither appropriate nor sufficient for the new demands in terms of learning. With the spread of distance learning, new forms of evaluation are needed, whether in the classroom or distance education, so that the evaluation process constitutes a genuine educational tool and allows the demonstration of the construction of knowledge, in the wider possible way, through the selection of the most relevant instruments to each type of knowledge.

Keywords: Traditional Method of Learning; New Trends in Learning Evaluation; Classroom Education; Distance Learning.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14244/19827199607