Week #7 - Technology and Assessment

What is it we want our students to know? This is an important question for teachers to be asking themselves. Once we figure out what we want our students to know, how do we find out if they actually understand or know what we have taught them? We need to assess the students to see if they have learned what we hoped they would.

It is my hope that in addition to what I want my students to learn, there will also be some extraneous learning going on as well. The students and I will learn something new together, something we didn't plan on learning. In my last post, I mentioned recent home projects in which my family and I have learned a lot. Some of it we knew we needed to learn at the start of the project. For example in raising chickens, we knew we would need to learn how to shelter our chickens. I did not, however, anticipate needing to learn why one chicken plucks another and how to make them stop this behavior. How do we assess this type of learning? Well we have healthy chickens laying eggs. In my way of thinking, we pass the test.

How does technology fit into assessment in schools? We all know that students can take computerized tests and the results can be easily analyzed using technology. This can assist teachers in learning what portion of the testing needs more attention in the classroom. However, is this truly creating the best educational experiences for our students? Is this the best assessments of the teacher's performance? or the students performance?

What about assessing the use of technology in the classrooms? If teachers were assessed on their use of technology in the classroom, they would most likely learn it and use it. The same is true for students. In this PSU Web 2.0 course, I'm thankful we are being assessed on use of technology as it has forced me to learn tools that I've always wanted to learn more about, but haven't taken the time to do so until now. I'm now thinking of ways in which I will assess my students' use of technology in school.

Most importantly I need to start with the question...What is it I want my students to know in regards to technology?