In this guest post, we welcome Shannon Brenner and Jordan O’Connell from D2L Excellence Award Winner Northeast Iowa Community College. Building on their on-demand D2L Fusion talk, they explore the evolving role of oral assessment and why it’s gaining new relevance in an AI-driven educational landscape.
As online educators, we often live with a little voice in the back of our heads whispering, “Is this really them?” That question has grown louder for all of us since late 2022, when generative AI tools exploded into the mainstream.
In our recent on-demand D2L Fusion talk, we shared how our interest in oral assessment of student learning has taken on renewed significance in the age of AI. The simple act of asking a student to speak their knowledge has become our go-to strategy for ensuring academic integrity and fostering genuine human connection in online classes. For most courses, the answer is not a better plagiarism checker, but a better mode of assessment, harnessing tools like Video Note built right into Brightspace.
Chatbots excel at mimicking the very format of submission we’ve relied on for decades. But an AI can’t reliably replicate genuine human expression. It can’t show excitement, wrestle with a concept in real-time or convey a lack of confidence.
Trading Text for Trust
By shifting assignments from written text to oral formats, we build authenticity directly into the assessment. Instead of asking students to write a reflection, we ask them to talk to us (and their peers). It’s much harder to fake one’s visage and voice than it is to copy and paste text from a chatbot.
Below, we recount a few examples from our own courses:
Shannon: In my composition courses, students record a Video Note reflecting on their writing revision process. They talk about their favorite parts of the paper and the areas they’re still struggling with. The difference is night and day.
I can hear the confidence or lack thereof in their voices. And when I’ve had someone read something that ChatGPT wrote, I can hear that, too. It’s easy to hear authenticity in their voices. If a student is generic, it’s clear they didn’t put in the work. If they’re specific and detailed, their effort is obvious.
As an added benefit, students transform from a name on a screen into a face and a personality. When I ask students to record, I provide feedback in the same medium. One of my students commented on a course evaluation that he was grateful to finally “engage with another person and not just words on a screen.” That connection is real. It reduces what academics call the “transactional distance” between instructor and student.
To push the accountability piece further, I’ve created a new rubric category called “Assignment Integrity” worth 50% of every assignment’s grade. It assesses evidence of critical thinking, connection to course-specific learning materials, and the inclusion of the student’s voice. I’m upfront with students: it’s much easier to meet these expectations if you record your submission. This nudges them toward a more authentic medium where their true understanding can shine.
Jordan: I’ve been incorporating video assessments in asynchronous online history and government courses for well over a decade, even as far back as 3G internet. The pandemic helped move the needle in terms of video tool adoption by learners, but it was the release of ChatGPT 3 that prompted me to move all my assessments to Video Note. The results have been incredible.
Asynchronous and untethered student recording seems to introduce a new element into the online classroom. In the hands of anyone eager to learn, a camera and a microphone can become an inherently flexible and creative means by which understanding can be demonstrated. It has, surprisingly, also become a conduit through which many online students openly share their genuine hopes, fears, frustrations and successes with me throughout the semester.
With video, it is easier to recognize all of my online students are individual learners, each with their own complex lives. Students record their submissions from workplace break rooms, from out in the barn and with their children yelling and laughing in the background. Unable to hide what they have not yet learned, students quickly open up about what they do not know and provide me new openings to teach in the online space. As soon as I made the switch, I felt compelled to record all of my own feedback using Video Note, showing students the human instructor behind the screen. As a result, I often get to know my online students even better than many face-to-face learners.
Though I allow students to reference notes during their recordings, my rubric requires that they look at the camera and avoid scripted responses. I have had very little push-back from learners and was surprised when my end-of-course course evaluation ratings shot up after implementation. I’m energized by the act of grading each week because I’m having a real conversation with each individual learner and seeing their weekly growth (and stumbles) in high definition.
Getting Started: Scaffolding for Success
Moving to oral assessment doesn’t require a massive overhaul. It’s about scaffolding the process and starting small.
- Ground the practice in institutional norms: Before implementing Video Note, be sure to review your college catalog, campus technology policies, accessibility guidelines, etc. to ensure assessment design aligns with your institutions’ rules and standards.
- Prepare students in advance: Use an Intelligent Agent to let newly enrolled students know in advance that video and/or audio assessment will be utilized in the course. Instructors can allow students a space to practice using the Video Note tool as soon as the course opens.
- Use it everywhere: Think beyond the Assignment tool. You can use Video Note in Discussion topics to create more human conversations and even utilize them in Quizzes. Video Note works great for pre-assessments, allowing students to explain outloud what they already know about a topic. Similarly, an end-of-unit exit ticket could ask students to reflect out loud on their cumulative learning.
- Emphasize Process, Not Product: We tell our students that we are not looking for polished presentations. We just expect them to hit “Record” and talk like we would if we were sitting in a classroom together. We make it a point to keep our own flubs in our recordings to show that honesty and authenticity are key to the learning process, not perfection.
It’s Worth the Time
One of the first questions we get from other faculty is about grading time. It’s true that listening to a 5-minute video can take longer than scanning a 500-word essay. But we’ve found it is a better way to identify which learners need support, and which learners are obviously not prepared.
You gain invaluable insight into a student’s thought process that text just can’t provide. (Pro tip: listening at 1.5x or 2x speed helps!) Freed from the task of constantly worrying about AI-generated text, the time you invest in listening is paid back in a stronger connection with your learners and deeper confidence in the integrity of their work.
The rise of AI isn’t a threat; it’s a catalyst for change in the ways we teach and learn. Our goal as instructors is to cultivate expressions of genuine intelligence. By embracing the human voice in online courses, we can build more connected, inclusive, and authentic learning communities that are, by their very nature, resistant to the shortcuts of AI.
Check out Shannon and Jordan’s full presentation from Fusion below and learn more about Video Note here.
Shannon Brenner, Adjunct Instructor and Instructional Designer, Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC)
Shannon Brenner is an Adjunct Instructor and Instructional Designer at Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC). As an instructional designer, she specializes in faculty development and innovation in teaching and learning. She teaches writing and study skills courses at NICC and other colleges and in a variety of modalities, focusing on building human connection and fostering student confidence in any class environment.
Jordan O’Connell, Instructional Designer and Instructor, Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC)
Jordan O’Connell serves as an Instructional Designer and Instructor at Northeast Iowa Community College, where he supports faculty in course building, assessment design, and instructional technologies. He recently co-authored a chapter for Teachers’ Roles and Perspectives on AI Integration in Schools (IGI Global, 2025), which explores the opportunities and ethical considerations of AI use amongst educators. He is currently pursuing an education doctoral degree through Winona State University and can be reached at [email protected]