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Effects Of Technology On Education
Effects Of Technology On Education
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Introduction
As Education moves into the 21st century educators have begun to question how students are assessed. When students are being assessed are they really getting a true picture of what was learned by the student? Authentic assessment takes a different approach; in essence the curriculum is built around the assessment. I other words you will be teaching to the test and students are given a real world application as assessment. The following review gives us insight as to the reasoning behind authentic assessments and how to develop them.
Literature Review
According to Jon Mueller, Professor of Psychology at North Central College, in his article “What is Authentic Assessment” assessment is what should drive the curriculum. Meaning that when teachers are using authentic assessment they should first decide the tasks that students will need to perform to demonstrate their competence and then the curriculum is developed to empower students to perform those tasks with ease, this would include the achievement of essential knowledge and skills. This has been referred to as planning backwards. He uses an example of someone taking a class in golf and then evaluating their performance by giving them a multiple choice test. That would not make sense; this theory would put them out on the golf course and ask them to simply play golf. Even though this is apparent with athletic skills, it is also true for academic subjects. We should teach students how to do math, history and science, not just know them. Then, we assess what the students have learned; we have students perform tasks that duplicate the tasks. When using authentic assessment teachers are encouraged to teach to the test. Students will need to learn how to perform wel...
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... They created a rubric of performance indicators, and time lines to track the progress of each group as they constructed their model cell (Moore, 1998).
The evidence that authentic assessment is a better way to measure how much a student learns seems to be strong. Educators need to take this to heart; it is only fair to the students to be assured that they are learning skills for life.
Works Cited
Moore, R. (1998, May-June). Helping Teachers Define and Develop Authentic Assessment and Evaluation Practices. Assessment Update .
Mueller, J. (2011). What is Authentic Assessment? Retrieved Sepetember 23, 2011, from Authentic Assessment Tool Box: http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm
Wiggins, G. (1996/1997, December/January). Practicing What We Preach in Designing Authentic Assessments . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, pp. 18-25.
Cole, H., Hulley, K., & Quarles, P. (2009). Does assessment have to drive the curriculum?
Stiggins, R. J. (2006, November/December). Assessment for learning: A key to motivation and achievement. Edge, 2, 3-19.
Referred to as “assessment of learning,” (Chappuis, J., Stiggins, Chappuis, S., & Arter, 2012, pg. 5) components of summative learning include evaluating, measuring, and making judgements about student knowledge, both on individual levels and group levels. Rather than supporting learning by way of formative assessment, summative assessment verifies learning, (Chappuis, J., Stiggins, Chappuis, S., Arter, 2012). Naturally, this is what interests educational stakeholders: administrators, parents, teachers, and those who create educational policies. (Chappuis, J., Stiggins, Chappuis, S., & Arter, 2012, pg. 5). Summative assessment historically and presently presents itself in the form of graded quizzes, tests, graded papers and presentations, district benchmark tests, state standardized tests, and college entrance
There’s nothing worse than to have students sum up all their knowledge, skills, thoughts, talents, and abilities into one multiple-choice test with one “right” answer. This is why assessments must encompass more ways of evaluating students than a paper and pencil strategy that does not account for the various competences of every student. This is one of the many reasons why standardized testing has been undoubtedly one of the most controversial topics in education to date. With this being said, there are alternatives to standardized tests that involve different opportunities including portable portfolios, performance exams, exhibitions, and/or recorded sessions to better “test” a student’s knowledge and abilities.
William, D., & Thompson, M. (2007). Integrating assessment with instruction: What will it take to
In organizations aspiring for growth and continual improvement, relationships are more intricate and alternatives more numerous than the either/or imposition implied by the notion of leaders and followers. Practically no one leads all of the time. Leaders also work as followers; all in all, “everyone uses a portion of their day following and another portion leading” (Galie and Bopst, 2006, p. 11).
Zumwalt, C. (2012). Authentic assessment and early childhood education—an update and Resources. Little Prints, 6(1), 1-15.
Cole, H., Hulley, K., & Quarles, P. (2009). Does assessment have to drive the curriculum?
Stiggins, R. (1991). Facing challenges of a new era of educational assessment. Applied Measurement in Education 4(4), 263+. Retrieved September 25, 2003 from Academic Search/EBSCO database.
Jacobs, H. H. (1997). Mapping the big picture: Integrating curriculum and assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Newmann, F. M. & Archbald, D. A. (1992). The nature of authentic academic achievement. Toward a New Science of Educational Testing and Assessment. State University of New York Press, Albany New York. 71-84.
Washington, DC: National Center for Teacher Quality. Hinchey, P. H., & University of Colorado at Boulder, N. (2010). Getting teacher assessment right: What policymakers can learn from research. National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.com.
In spite of the importance of assessment in education, few teachers receive proper training on how to design or analyze assessments. Due to this, when teachers are not provided with suitable assessments from their textbooks or instructional resources, teachers construct their own in an unsystematic manner. They create questions and essay prompts comparable to the ones that their teachers used, and they treat them as evaluations to administer when instructional activities are completed predominantly for allocating students' grades. In order to use assessments to improve instruction and student learning, teachers need to change their approach to assessments by making sure that they create sound assessments. To ensure that their assessments are sound they need include five basic indicators that can be used as steps to follow when creating assessments. The first of these indicators and the first step a teacher must take when creating a sound assessme...
Through assessment students and teachers are able to determine the level of mastery a student has achieved with standards taught. Both formative and summative assessment should be purposeful and targeted to gain the most accurate data to drive further instruction (Ainsworth, 2010). While this syllabus does a good job of identifying the need for both formal and informal assessments, the way in which this is communicated does not provide enough detail for understanding. Simply listing assessment types does not give any insight into how these assessments fit in the learning process of this course. While some of the assessments mentioned could be common assessments chosen by the school or district to gain insight into the effectiveness of instruction, the inclusion of authentic assessments is most beneficial to students and demonstrates learning in a context closer to that of a work environment (Rovai, 2004). Unfortunately, this particular course, according to this syllabus, relies heavily on quizzes and traditional tests and essays to form the bulk of assessment opportunities. While other activities, such as formative assessments, journaling and discussions are mentioned as possible avenues for scoring, they are given a very low percentage of the overall grade. This shows that they are not valued for their ability to show progression and mastery. If this is indeed the case, this puts the students as a
I use assessments to assist me to identify and to develop their learning process. Assessment is not about the final grade, but the learning experience. I would rather have my students know how to look up information and apply knowledge than to memorize it and forget it ten minutes after the test. Learning is a life-long adventure and I want my students to know how to adjust and cope during their adventure. I want my students to have the skills for researching and finding the answer. It is not always that answer which demonstrates learning; it is in the process in which you find the answer that demonstrates learning.