"What are the best ways to know that students have mastered the skills that matter most? How do we create a better assessment and accountability system that gives us the information we need to ensure that all students are learning essential skills?"
First, thanks to Danny, a young teacher who commented on my October 16 post. It is good to see a reflective practitioner in the making. As a writer who supports education reform, I have the privilege of writing about the way things should be. I see the challenges teachers encounter when they try to bring new ideas into the complex environment of classrooms and am always in awe of those who innovate in the midst of those challenges. Like you, however, I see that "the same old way" of assessment has not yet lost its hold. One reason is that state accountability systems reward preparation for one-shot standardized testing, the primary purposes of which are sorting students and judging teachers. But classroom-level barriers to implementing a variety of rich assessments, I think, also are a factor.
Rich assessment tasks call for systems to support new approaches to documentation of student learning. Providing teachers with time for gathering and analyzing evidence of learning is vital. Also, the power of technology needs to be tapped. With all of the innovations we have seen in computing, communications, and connectivity among devices, it is time for an intelligent device that teachers can use to collect and sort evidence of learning in its many forms, especially the learning that is displayed in the process of producing that final artifact that now is the sole focus of assessment in many classrooms.
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5 weeks ago
1 comment:
Thanks for mentioning me in your blog. I really like what you are saying again, but I have a pedagogical question.
I want to work in an urban setting, but I also am HEAVILY in favor of using technology in the classroom. Is there some way to use technology in the classroom, but still allowing for students without technology? For instance, I am thinking of sites like box.net that have made it easy for online collaboration and for electronic turn in of assignments to easily check for plagarism and commenting on students work via e-mail through the comment tabs on microsoft word, but if these student's don't have computers at home, all of these ideas will be of little use.
I know some teachers require students to have library cards to use internet at their public library, but some of these kids will have extracurricular activities and the libraries hours will not be conducive with their schedule. Any thoughts on this?
Danny
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