Assessment... How & Why?
imaged sourced from Microsoft Images
Assessment and evaluation of a student’s progress in education is a significant and daunting task. Especially with the most critical of such reporting are parents.
The advantage of assessing the above lesson is that the students have access to their Google Earth map from home. While you as a teacher can print or view the students work the traditional way (if they placed landmarks in the correct place or if they managed to draw a path between the two classes etc), the parents are able to look at or even continue working on the map with the student out of school hours.
While the in-school assessing can be done in the traditional manner (as mentioned above by printing and viewing the maps) this can often be a time consuming task and often misleading as the students may work in pairs to solve the answer. While this can be a good thing when it comes to collaboration skills, you as a teacher do not have much to work from in order to send home as a record of individual comprehension.
For assessment purposes, I have suggested as a whole group review at the end, to have one ‘published’ group (a group selected to present their work for that particular lesson – rotational based), present their work to the remainder of the class for peer review. This encourages the students to speak in public while allowing group support so that should one or two students who do not possess the same confidence as others in their group, can still gain feedback and peer review. This also allows the remainder of the class to play a part in the ‘published’ group’s work, giving them a chance to speak up about missed landmarks, incorrect placement or even literacy based comments such as spelling.
To develop the assessment of the students to view their comprehension skills and understand what they have learned, is to develop a class blog or wiki. This will allow the students to contribute what they have discovered and this can be viewed by the Skype class - allowing a constant collaboration and communication between the classes. Students can then share what they liked or did not like about the lesson, ask questions if they want to know more, give other students answers if they know them and develop a confidence in the topic while developing an understand of online information.
This digital version of evaluating a students progress on a topic is beneficial to you as a teacher, the student, parents who wish to see what their student is learning and for the Skype class (or any other interested class) to view. While traditional means of assessing might still be an avenue for some, the mentioned 'digital' method of assessing allows the students to 'demonstrate their work to an authentic audience' and 'allows for the integration of complex skills' (The Buck Institute n.d.) while giving the students a sense of pride in their work and allows for self-correction.
The advantage of assessing the above lesson is that the students have access to their Google Earth map from home. While you as a teacher can print or view the students work the traditional way (if they placed landmarks in the correct place or if they managed to draw a path between the two classes etc), the parents are able to look at or even continue working on the map with the student out of school hours.
While the in-school assessing can be done in the traditional manner (as mentioned above by printing and viewing the maps) this can often be a time consuming task and often misleading as the students may work in pairs to solve the answer. While this can be a good thing when it comes to collaboration skills, you as a teacher do not have much to work from in order to send home as a record of individual comprehension.
For assessment purposes, I have suggested as a whole group review at the end, to have one ‘published’ group (a group selected to present their work for that particular lesson – rotational based), present their work to the remainder of the class for peer review. This encourages the students to speak in public while allowing group support so that should one or two students who do not possess the same confidence as others in their group, can still gain feedback and peer review. This also allows the remainder of the class to play a part in the ‘published’ group’s work, giving them a chance to speak up about missed landmarks, incorrect placement or even literacy based comments such as spelling.
To develop the assessment of the students to view their comprehension skills and understand what they have learned, is to develop a class blog or wiki. This will allow the students to contribute what they have discovered and this can be viewed by the Skype class - allowing a constant collaboration and communication between the classes. Students can then share what they liked or did not like about the lesson, ask questions if they want to know more, give other students answers if they know them and develop a confidence in the topic while developing an understand of online information.
This digital version of evaluating a students progress on a topic is beneficial to you as a teacher, the student, parents who wish to see what their student is learning and for the Skype class (or any other interested class) to view. While traditional means of assessing might still be an avenue for some, the mentioned 'digital' method of assessing allows the students to 'demonstrate their work to an authentic audience' and 'allows for the integration of complex skills' (The Buck Institute n.d.) while giving the students a sense of pride in their work and allows for self-correction.
