One of the most essential ideas or quotes that I took away from this chapter is "Teachers need to reevaluate their methods of assessing student learning in a technology-rich environment with the goal if considering and learning new ways for gathering evidence for learning. This is such a powerful quote. It helps remind me what I need to do, not only with teaching technology, but all the curriculum. Assessment is vital in supporting students with in concepts or information being taught. As a teacher that is new to third grade, I rely on assessment to understand how I am performing as a teacher. If the assessments that I give my students are low that tells me I need to reevaluate what I taught during that unit. I recently gave a reading assessment for the book Stone Soup and I felt that my students were going to do well. When I corrected the assessment I found out that I needed to reevaluate how I taught the unit on Stone Soup. I knew the assessment was created well because there were many different assessment types. For example, there was multiple choice, short answer, and there was also short essay. So even if they had a challenging time with one area there were plenty of other areas that they could do well on. Because I was able to take the data from the assessments of my students, I now understand what I need to focus on more the next time that I teach this area.
Something that I would like to use in my classroom more is rubrics. They are a great way to get students motivated about a project. I have used them a couple of times this year, but I would like to make a goal of using them at least three to four times a quarter on big projects that we do in class. A great project that I would like my students to do that I would create a rubric for is creating a PowerPoint on bugs/insects. Usually in about March, after the CRTs, we do a big unit on bugs. I would like to put my students in groups and have them create a PowerPoint on a particular bugs. I would give them a rubric to guide them. I could see this being a very fun and engaging assignment, plus they are exploring with technology.
One concern that I have after reading this chapter is the variety of different assessments that are so beneficial to teaching. There are times that I struggle with knowing what kind of assessment to use. I know this probably comes with teaching, but I feel like there should be a guideline to help teachers understand what assessments are best for certain areas. I think most of it depends on your students. I like to give a variety so I can give every student a chance to be successful.
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You hit the target regarding the importance of reevaluating one's teaching. It is especially important in cases where a majority of the class does poorly. Although, even if a few student are not mastering the concept, the teacher needs to figure out a way to teach the same concept in different ways. I also would like to use rubrics more in my kindergarten classroom. Hopefully after the holidays, my class will be more mature and ready to explore rubrics. Right now I am trying to lay the ground work for rubrics and technology.
ReplyDeleteI agree that assessments need to change with the change in instruction. School is becoming more student-centered with more emphasis on using technology to support learning. I think rubrics are a great assessment tool. Providing students with the rubric at the beginning of the assignment or project gives them clear directions of what needs to be included in their work. I use rubrics for all of the students writing. It took me a while to develop all of them, but it was worth it. Sometimes, I have the students grade themselves based on the rubric, then I go through and grade it also. We discuss areas that the scores did not match. This helps them understand what is expected for "A" work.
ReplyDeleteJennifer Atkinson
Jamie, I think you have the right idea--as long as you use a variety of testing strategies you are providing students with many opportunities to demonstrate their learning. I am glad to see that others have given you their good ideas! Joan
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