Module 6 - Student Assessment

Student assessment has come a long way in the last decade or so. When I was in elementary school (several decades ago), student assessment generally consisted of taking a written test after being taught a lesson, chapter, or unit. The assessment was always graded for accuracy, and its purpose was to show how much information I had retained. It was rarely, if ever, used to help the teacher assess his or her teaching methods.

This module has helped me think about student-centered assessment in a whole new way. If teachers will adapt their assessment methodologies toward actually assessing how their students learn, then everyone in the classroom wins - student engagement increases and real learning occurs.

So, how do we make this shift as educators? We must learn to think about and assess our students' individual learning styles and interests. We must reflect on the 21st century skills our students will need to be successful in life. Next, we must design lessons that will engage our students and equip them to succeed. It is imperative that we move beyond the same old assessments and standardized tests that we likely experienced in the classroom. 

Fortunately, there are many technological tools available that will make this feat easier for busy educators. There are tools online, many of them free, that will assist educators as they assess their students' passions, learning styles, strengths, and weaknesses. Teachers are empowered to create simple surveys and administer them virtually to students, and data is captured and recorded to be used for many purposes, including teacher reflection. This will allow teachers to fine tune lessons that will capture the attention of their students and deliver content that is timely, relevant, and engaging.

In my future classroom, I plan to use Google Forms to administer a survey at the start of every school year. I will ask my students simple questions about themselves that will allow me to determine their learning styles, interests, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. This will help me tailor lessons, group projects, and assignments that will meet their individual and collective needs. I will reassess students midyear and end of year to monitor our progress.

I also plan to use Quizlet and Kahoot! to help me hone in on specific areas of weakness in my students' understanding. These fun and engaging tools will allow me to assess my students' content knowledge and see if I need to review material or move instruction in a new direction.

Module 2 - Curricular Frameworks Reflection

According to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, there are six levels of cognitive learning.  These six levels are applying, remembering, analyzing, understanding, creating, and evaluating. 

The wording in the taxonomy was changed from the original noun form to verbs. Also, when thinking of the levels of learning, it is more helpful to think of them as working cogs which center around the main cog, creating, rather than in the original pyramid form.

Lower order thinking involves remembering, understanding, and applying, while higher order thinking involves analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

"Skills are needed in the 21st century that go beyond basic literacy. Students must be able to read critically, write persuasively, think and reason logically, and solve complex problems. A successful 21st-century student must also be adept at managing information—finding, evaluating, and applying new content understanding with great flexibility." (www.21stcenturyskills.org)

The 4Cs are learning and innovation skills that will help students succeed in today's technological world. These essential skills include critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

Critical Thinking involves analyzing, interpreting, evaluating, making decisions, and solving problems.

Communication can be written, verbal, or multimedia messages. Students must be able to share information with others while expressing their thoughts and opinions clearly. Strong listening and evaluating skills to aid collaboration are essential.

Collaboration includes the ability to work well with others to accomplish a goal while remaining flexible and sharing group responsibility.

Creativity encompasses abilities such as brainstorming, refining ideas, being responsive to ideas from others, and making ideas tangible and useful to others.

With Bloom's revised taxonomy and 21st century skills in mind, educators must create lessons that encourage students to explore and master these abilities. Group projects which allow students to effectively communicate and collaborate with others are essential to their success. Students should also be introduced to complex problems to solve and allowed flexibility in choosing technological tools to work with to accomplish their goals.

In my future classroom, I plan to have a project each quarter that requires students to analyze and evaluate a problem. Students will be required to work together using technology to find a creative solution to their problem while engaging the 4Cs in their daily activities.

Module 1 - Technology Integration and Framework - Reflection

 According to Robert Marzano, "Standards hold the greatest hope for significantly improving student achievement." 

ISTE Standards for Students were created for this very reason. ISTE maintains: "Today’s students must be prepared to thrive in a constantly evolving technological landscape. The ISTE Standards for Students are designed to empower student voice and ensure that learning is a student-driven process." These standards were created at the national level.

Let's explore the ISTE standards:

1. Empowered Learner - Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

2. Digital Citizen - Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.

3. Knowledge Constructor - Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

4. Innovative Designer - Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.

5. Computational Thinker - Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.

6. Creative Communicator - Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.

7. Global Collaborator - Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Standards also exist on a local level in Alabama. They were created with extensive use of the ISTE standards for students. The Alabama Course of Study: Digital Literacy and Computer Science provides the framework for the study of technology from Kindergarten through Grade 12 in Alabama’s public schools. These standards for content are fundamental but not exhaustive, and they provide the minimum content requirements for each grade.

To help teachers successfully implement technology standards in classrooms, several exceptional frameworks have been created. They are TPACK, SAMR, TECH, and PRIMM.

TPACK was created to help align technical, pedagogical, and content knowledge.

SAMR helps teachers design lessons using technology that engage higher order thinking skills, promote rich learning experiences, and impact student achievement.

The SAMR model is defined below:

Substitution – Technology acts as a direct tool substitute, with no functional change. 

Augmentation –  Technology acts as a direct tool substitute, but with functional improvements.  

Modification - Technology allows for significant task redesign.

Redefinition - Technology allows for the creation of new tasks that were previously inconceivable.

Substitution and Augmentation are the lowest levels of technology integration in the SAMR model. Enhancement of education has occurred, but lessons have not yet reached the transformative level. Modification and Redefinition are the highest levels of the model in which transformation occurs. Here, students begin analyzing, evaluating, and creating their own data and tasks.

TECH was created to help teachers think of the SAMR model in a way that focuses on people rather than tasks.

TECH aligns well with the SAMR model:

Traditional - Teacher designs the lessons with traditional pedagogy but with technology supports.

Enhanced - Teacher integrates multiple technological tools in a way that enhances the learning experience.

Choice - Teacher sets broad goals for students in which they are able to choose from various technological tools to accomplish a chosen task.

Handoff - Students' interest drives the learning experience with teacher guidance and flexible choice of tools and technologies to achieve and authentic and exemplary product.

PRIMM is a framework used for teaching computer programming to students. 

The PRIMM model is defined below:

Predict - Read through the code and write down what one thinks will happen.

Run - What happened when the code was run?

Investigate - Why does the code behave in a certain manner?

Modify - Make changes to the code to help aid in one's understanding.

Make - Write one's own code to solve problems.

This module has helped me understand how the various technology integration frameworks apply to the lessons I will present. I am particularly inspired by the element of global collaboration. 

In future lessons, I will seek ways to allow my students to connect with others across the globe. I particularly enjoy teaching science, and I have a love of gardening. As I teach Life Science going forward, I would love to have my students collaborate with students in an area with a similar climate and compare the differences in agricultural techniques. Ideally, each set of students would be allowed to cultivate their own garden plots, record and analyze data using spreadsheets and other tools, and collaborate with others concerning ways to improve existing agricultural techniques. 

Additionally, I would love to introduce a unit on robotics where students must choose their own design and create their own robots using limited resources. With a background in IT, I would enjoy teaching students basic coding techniques that would be helpful with this project. PRIMM will come in handy with this unit! 

In the past, I have had my students cultivate a garden plot, and I have had them use technology to learn and collaborate with one another, but I love the idea of infusing technology in ways that will help my students further engage in rich learning experiences with their peers across the world. I also love the idea of virtual field trips to places we would otherwise not be able to visit. Finally, I keenly realize that with all this technology comes the responsibility to teach my students to be good digital citizens.