Sunday, February 3, 2013

Chapter Three: Developing Lessons with Technology


Q: How can teachers evaluate and assess their students?

Types of assessment:

*Standards based assessment:
These begin with the curriculum that gives a framework of expected outcomes for each grade level. Tests are then made to assess how a student is doing working toward those goals.  

Standardized Testing: These tests are administered and scored in a standardized manner and can include multiple choice, high-stakes, and time limited tests.  Standardized tests allow for an easy comparison of outcomes between test takers. High-stakes tests currently play a major role in college admissions and high school graduation. Since teachers are held accountable for their students test scores, this type of test is given often.

Norm-referenced tests: These tests rank students by grouping of age or grade level to show how a student s doing in comparison to the norms of the larger group.

Criterion-referenced tests: These tests compare a student’s performance to specific objectives or standards instead of to other students as with norm-referenced tests.

 
*Instructionally supportive assessment:

This type of test uses assessment results which can guide the teachers instructional practice. Assessments cam ne a mixture of teacher observations and student work such as portfolios. This allows the teacher to see different learning needs.

*Performance assessments:
These measure how a student does within the context of a certain activity.

Student performance rubrics: These can used in performance assessments to evaluate assignments and activities. Rubrics give students a clear framework for evaluation and grading

 

Technology can be used to conduct standardized tests and for performance assessments. Performance assessments can be used to evaluate PowerPoint presentations  for example.

Tech Tool:

Gliffy allows teachers to be better organized with its free diagraming tools.  

Teachers can create classroom floor plans and seating charts. It also allows teachers to organize information into flow charts and Venn diagrams for visual learners.

Gliffy provides a few pros like free use of most features, it’s browser based, and collaborative.  I attempted to make a flowchart to illustrate my this blog post but found what should have been a simple task to be time consuming and frustrating. In order to make the flowchart look presentable, I had to mess with alignment way too much. While pressing the undo button to put back an arrow I had moved, I somehow ended up deleting half of my flowchart with no way to get it back.

Gliffy would be a good free diagraming tool in a pinch but I don’t think it’s the best.

1 comment:

  1. Like any tool, I think Gliffy needs some time to learn its nuances...though it could just be inherent in the software, too. I've been there, but have some other favorites that I prefer. The opportunity to experiment and eliminate though can still be a good learning experience! :)

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