Abstract

The role of assessment in learning improvement for courses with dynamic material, individual diversity, and high learner’s autonomy should be properly blended with other components of the feedback necessary for the learners, instructors, and administration. The dynamism of learning context for some courses and even programs might stem from the diversity of the learners in terms of their cultural and academic background, learning styles, individual learning goals, and interests. The continuing changes in the learning material, its application, and utility contexts can also contribute to the need in supporting learners’ autonomy and active participation. This allows for higher effectiveness of learning as well as efficiency in saving overloaded centralized teaching resources. Web 2.0 offers an approach to tapping into individual resources and also shows the proof of its workability. The main problem in the improvement of learning that uses Web 2.0–style technologies and methodologies is in the lack of observability and controllability. This can be compensated by the sufficient number and proper use of various feedbacks in such type of learning. The paper analyzes fundamanetal properties and practical implications of socially-mediated learning, distributed cognition and other interaction-intensive methods resulting in a proposed feedback model. The model can be used in learning design and improvement efforts as well as in understanding of the real complexity of “closing the loop” Web 2.0 style.