In my context, I am working with students and teachers in K-5 in a face to face environment where the emphasis is much more on formative ongoing assessments (the process) than putting major focus on the summative assessment which is more a review of students’ overall understanding and their ability to apply their knowledge in a new context. Technology is useful in so many different ways in both formative and summative assessments.
When we do our planning for our units of inquiry through the Primary Years Programme, we always start by using a backwards by design model and planning our summative assessment. We then plan our learning engagements in order to help students be as successful as possible at the end of each unit. One of the powerful tools that teachers use during the summative assessment is personal interviews with each child to assess their understanding. I feel this is best done face to face so the teacher can prompt additional responses based on the student’s answers. However, if technology is used to record these interviews, teachers can train parents/other teachers to help give the interviews and then watch the videos later. Students can then put their interview video into their e-portfolio to then help them with a written reflection and as a way to record their understanding.
“The trick when designing assessment regimes is to generate engagement with learning tasks without generating piles of marking.” (Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning,page 8).
I agree with this statement on many levels, if teachers want students to practice their basic skills and get prompt feedback, I believe that technology can be a tremendous help, freeing up the teachers time to more readily focus on differentiated teaching based on the results of tests created with technology.
I have used the Renaissance Programme for Reading and Math assessments online. The diagnostic automated feedback provides the individual student’s reading/math grade based on student answers which is useful for both teaching and learning. The test is designed so that for each answer a student answers correctly, the questions become progressively harder.
Different ways that technology can be used to assess student’s progress is to require documentation of work throughout including drafts of assignments and student reflections, questions and wonderings as they work through their thinking. With my Grade 3 students, they would write weekly blogs to share their understanding and reflect on their learning.
When creating assessment tasks, our goal is for students to work together so that their learning becomes more thoughtful as they share different perspectives while reinforcing their cooperation and collaboration skills. Opportunities using technology for students to learn from each other can be very valuable. An example from a Grade 4 class using Edmodo, is sharing their learning by students taking turns making and uploading videos to their class page explaining how they solved a math problem. They learn by teaching, and their peers learn from watching an explanation being presented in a ‘kid friendly’ fashion (usually much more interesting and creative).
Students can also use tools such as Google documents or presentations to work on collaborative projects from home. It is important to have a purpose and an intended audience, which is often enough motivation for younger students to do their best job. Teachers can then check in on the group’s projects online and give detailed feedback.
Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf