Week Seven

Using Technology for Assessment is this week's topic. 

There are so many different types of assessment.  I really enjoyed Anderson, Green and Speck's (Anderson, 2008) review of them in our reading for the week. 

1.  Objective assessments that have set answers that are defined.  Instructors ask students matching or true-false or multiple choice or corresponding answer questions at all levels or education across the spectrum of fields.  Many of the assessments of this type at my institution are done on scanned forms which students must fill in the correct circles with a number two pencil; you know the kind I mean (p.199-200).

2.  Checklist assessments where the student and teacher can mark off a list of the objects or information to be learned or met through an assignment.  My "favorite" example of this in my own school district, at both the middle school and high school levels for both my children and myself is the infamous LEAF PROJECT.  Where the student must have x number of leaves from this type of tree and x number of leaves from this type of tree, etc, etc..  And the project must have "fresh leaves" with correct labeling of scientific and common names.  (The fresh leaves are so you know you cannot use your older sibling or if you have a hoarding parent, their leaf project.)  Students have a checklist that must be followed so that the teacher, student, and parents all are on the same page as to what must be obtained for the maximum number of project points (p.203-204).

3.  Rubrics are a guide type of assessment that is similar in nature to the checklist.  However, it provides the student a rating dependent on how much or how well an area was accomplished under the standards of the project.  Most of the graduate work I have had at Missouri Baptist University has utilized rubric assessments.  I have encountered them in a couple of other places and I myself have used them in my own classes.  I believe that they provide the criteria upfront to the student in a way that some other assignment assessments may not (p.204).

4.  Portfolios are another type of assessment that is used at Missouri Baptist in this program.  We have a working electronic portfolio; which is to say that we are constantly building upon what we are learning and we use it in each class to demonstrate what we have learned from class to class as our competencies evolve and increase in complexities.  I did not get an undergraduate degree in education, so I did not have a portfolio as my mother, aunt, and others who are close to me had to complete.. However,  most of there portfolios were not electronic in nature, but were more of a three ring binder or multiple binder project for a committee to review (p.207-208).

5.  Performance based assessments were what I was used to because I earned my first degree as a vocal and instrumental music major.  In music, assessments are difficult because they are powerfully based upon instructor judgement.  And I hate to say this, 20 years later, but it is true, if they were having a bad day, you may have a bad assessment.  Human error is human.  Dancers, painters, sculptures, artists of any kind will tell you that from time to time, they have no idea why they did not receive a good assessment on their work for a given day (p.203).  However, I believe that those critics of those works made those students better at their art.  The student may not have agreed with or liked the assessment of the performance, but they probably grew stronger in their field from the experience. 

Do you know the old Harry Chapin song about "Flowers are Red"?  Basically the song is about a little boy who goes to school and starts to draw flowers with all the colors he has in his box.  But the
teacher tells him that he is wrong; that flowers are read and leaves are green.  The boy argues with her that there are so many colors!  Why can't he use them all?

As I have been working on this degree and as I read this chapter, that song kept playing in my head.  Technology cannot understand how technology will ever provide meaningful performance based assessment.  The leaf project can be scanned and assessed.  The multiple choice, true/false, and matching tests can be assessed.  How can a flute sonata or a pen and ink sketch be assessed?  I guess I better do some more reading and exploring. 

I am still learning as I blog.

Reference:
Anderson, R., Grant, M., & Speck, B., (2008). Technology to teach literacy: a resource for k-8 teachers. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education.