Assessments


 * = ===Assessment=== ||= ===Strengths=== ||= ===Weaknesses=== ||= ===Role of Technology=== ||
 * Rubrics || * Authentic Scoring guide
 * Working guide for students
 * Easily modified
 * Provide "focus,emphasis, and attention to particular details as a model for students." (Teacher Vision, 2010, p 15)
 * Give students control over their learning || * Time consuming to create a good ones
 * Care needs to be taken to make sure important aspects are not forgotten
 * Can restrict students on how a project is finished || * Many websites dedicated to the creation of rubric
 * Can be uploaded and scores downloaded to a database
 * media type="custom" key="7769637"(Josmith, 2007) ||
 * Self and Peer Evaluations || * Encourages student involvement and responsibility (The University of Sydney, 2009)
 * Encourages reflections on work(The University of Sydney, 2009)
 * Develops judgment skills
 * Ownership is promoted || * Extra time needed to allow for evaluations by students
 * Students may initially grade too easy
 * Some students may be reluctant to find faults, not understanding constructive criticism
 * Takes practice to be completely effective || * Student work can be uploaded to the Internet to allow for evaluations from anyone, anywhere
 * Teacher generated forms or rubric can guide students through evaluations ||
 * Digital Observations || * Actual visual or audio recording of student performance/ability
 * Can be viewed over and over again for studying, by parents, teachers, and given student (Salend, 2009)
 * Boost self esteem when student sees themselves completing an activity
 * Can show growth over time || * Can record inappropriate behavior and cause students to act "silly"
 * Does require the necessary equipment both to record and view and/or listen to recordings || Some of the following technology would be necessary to to create the observations:
 * Digital video recorders
 * Document camera
 * Microphone
 * Audacity - audio software
 * Video viewing software such as Media Player ||
 * Technology - Based Educational Games || * Engaging and typically hold student attention
 * "Flexibility in varying the content and the nature of the skills to be assessed to math the needs and levels of many different students" (Salend, 2009, p. 51)
 * Self paced, providing instant feedback to the students || * Students can become too engrossed and not want to work any other way, but through games
 * If game is too hard or has flaws can cause unnecessary frustration || * Individual educational software can be purchased
 * 1000's of educational websites available on the Internet, some free and some require a subscription ||
 * Project Based || * Students given ownership of their learning
 * Problem solving generally occurs
 * Students see "real world" application of material taught in classroom
 * Collaboration is encouraged
 * Active learning is occurring with the teacher as the facilitator || * More time consuming than standardized lessons
 * Unstructured learning environment is hard for some teachers and students to adjust too || * Presentation software
 * Internet for project research ||
 * Portfolios || * Contains evidence reflecting a wide range of skills and attributes
 * Can reflect student development and illustrate student progression
 * Can reflect attitudes and values
 * Aids in job searching || * Time consuming for staff marking them
 * Difficult to ensure reliability between staff
 * Can encourage cheating re ownership of work || * Student work can be uploaded to the Internet to allow for evaluations from anyone, anywhere
 * Teacher generated forms or rubric can guide students through evaluations ||
 * Surveys & Questionnaires || * Easy to administer
 * Can cover a variety of topics in a brief amount of time
 * Helps to establish relationship with stakeholders
 * Easier to communicate results to stakeholders
 * Can be used to gather information from individuals who would be difficult to include in other assessment methods
 * Demonstrates concern about gathering feedback/information || * Information on student learning (perception and opinion) considered to be indirect data
 * Good surveys and questionnaires are difficult to develop
 * Voluntary participation may result in biased results
 * Forced-response choices may not allow individuals to respond as they wish
 * Low response rate || * Teachers can use survey websites such as SurveyMonkey.com
 * Excel can be used to chart data ||
 * Locally Developed Exams || * Can be tailored to match program and schools objectives
 * Specific criteria for performance can be established in the relation to the curriculum
 * Easier to use in pre and post assessment
 * Can obtain results more quickly || * Complex and time consuming
 * More costly in time and effort
 * Requires leadership and coordination || * Practice tests can be given on the Internet and made accessible to parents
 * Results can be obtained online
 * Tests can be given online ||
 * Demonstrations || * Used to assess from multiple perspectives
 * Engages students in active learning
 * Promotes student creativity
 * Used to assess the transfer of skills and the integration of content || * Time consuming and labor intensive
 * Scoring can be more subjective
 * Can be intimidating to students || * Presentation software
 * Internet for project research ||
 * Inventories || * Can be valid for specific outcomes
 * Predictive information that can be used to coach individuals or improve programs
 * Includes a vast range of processes and outcomes
 * Information can be used to help plan based on students needs and interests || * Extremely time, labor, and time intensive
 * Difficult to administer and score
 * Must have reliable and consistent data to be valid || * Information can be recorded on spreadsheet
 * Research based information found on the Internet can be used to create a specific inventory ||
 * Objective (multiple choice, true/false, matching) || * Provides high reliability in scoring
 * Easy to grade
 * Commonly used and recognized
 * Exam and homework questions can be directly linked || * Requires careful planning in order to provide direct measures of students skills
 * Does not prove understanding from students answers || * Tests can be created using different applications
 * Tests can be administered and graded online ||
 * Reflective journals || * This self assessment allows the student to identify his/her own strengths and weaknesses
 * Helps to set goals to improve learning and performance
 * Makes students responsible for their learning
 * Can be used to provide feedback || * may be unreasonable or impractical
 * Exceptions may be to high
 * May not be appropriate in all cases || * Students can keep journals in a blog
 * Teacher can format a journal to include specific questions or concerns with that particular assignment ||
 * Personal Response Systems || * Assess students’ understanding of the subject matter.
 * Receive immediate feedback and reinforcement for what is being learned.
 * Get shy and under-prepared students to participate.
 * Poll students’ opinions and preferences instantly.
 * Observe student misconceptions.
 * Encourage peer instruction. || * Lack of privacy during voting may prevent completely honest votes
 * Time constraints may preclude accurate estimates
 * The overall trend of student responses is only truly apparent to the instructor (Caldwell, 2007) || * Convert answer into an Excel spreadsheet for hard copies of results.
 * Voters or personal response systems send information to computer where questions and answers can be shown on projector, Promethean Board or SmartBoard.
 * media type="custom" key="7769641"(Tuskan, 2010) ||
 * Essays || * Allows for student individuality
 * Allows for demonstration of understanding of topic area
 * Assess writing style, a useful transferable skill || * Can cause lack of equality as some students may never have been shown how to write essays well.
 * Time consuming for staff to mark.
 * Time consuming for the students.
 * Marking/Grading is subjective. || * Microsoft Word
 * Teacher generated forms or rubric can guide students through evaluations
 * Internet for research ||
 * Entrance and Exit tickets || * Activating prior knowledge
 * guide the lesson for the day
 * Use the cards to design the lesson plan for the next day || * Grading may be subjective.
 * Students may get discouraged if they can't think of anything. || * Students could text responses using personal response systems.
 * Students could send Exit slips to class website and compare to what other students sent. ||
 * Learning Contract || * Provides a mechanism for responding to individual needs as they emerge in the course.
 * Students help others learn, plan, and conduct their own lifelong learning
 * Students have more degrees of freedom in developing their contracts. || * Expertise of the teacher is stretched. || * Computer generated contracts created by the student.
 * Presented on a class website. ||
 * Graphic Organizers || * Can provide students with a creative and engaging way of expressing what they know and are able to do.
 * Provides documentation of student growth from beginning and end of a project or assignment. || * Do not sufficiently represent the background of a given problem that implies the importance of a situation as understood through a learners prior knowledge. || * Online computer based tools
 * Internet ||
 * Written Products || * Allows for student craftsmanship, pride, and personal embellishment. || * Difficult to assess individual contributions when product is a group project. || * Students create written products using Microsoft Word.
 * Templates can be generated and used to generate creativity
 * Work can be uploaded to an online porfolio ||
 * Presentations || * Allows for integration of complex skills || * Difficult to set up and administer, especially with a large number of students. || * Microsoft Power Point Presentation
 * Video
 * Podcast ||
 * Self-Report || * Allows for teacher to assess attitudes, reflections,and thinking processes of students. || * Difficult to establish reliable criteria || * Student can upload images and information to a blog. ||
 * Exhibitions || * Allows for student creativity.
 * Students can express what they have learned in a different ways.
 * Allows students to exhibit work that they are proud of.
 * Helps develop public speaking skills.
 * Students take pride in exhibiting quality work to their peers.
 * Objective grading occurs with rubrics. || * Time consuming to make time for each student to exhibit their learning.
 * Students have a hard time speaking in front of a group the first couple time.
 * Students that haven't done well or learned much in class will not have much work to exhibit. || * Students can create websites, PowerPoints, movies, podcast, etc. to exhibit there work and learning. ||
 * Service Learning || * Students are connected with the community through providing services.
 * There is authentic learning about real life problems that affect their community.
 * Creates a "buy-in" for the students because they have a say in what they are learning about.
 * Gives them the answer to the question of "Why do we have to learn about this?".
 * Allows students to collaborate with students, teachers, and community members. || * Every student may not "buy in".
 * Can be very time consuming to create lessons.
 * Teachers have to be able to "give up" some control over what is learned.
 * Lessons/Units can be much longer or shorter than expected. || * Students can take pictures and create slide shows of the work they do in the community.
 * Internet use to research the problem(s) within the community. ||
 * Online curriculum || * Provides immediate feedback to the student.
 * Provides teachers with multiple sets of data to track student learning.
 * Curriculum is self-contained.
 * Students can access it from any computer with internet access.
 * Learning isn't contained to school hours. || * Student can guess and check there way to correct answers with learning much.
 * Not all students enjoy learning through computer based programs.
 * Programs can be very expensive. || * The whole program is through the internet so students have to have a general knowledge of computer usage. ||
 * Credit by proficiency || * Students earn credit by proving to be proficient with content standards.
 * Great for students that don't do well in tradition school settings. || * Determining what is proficient can be difficult and confusing for the teacher. || * Can use online resource to study.
 * Can create presentations to display proficiency in content areas. ||
 * Standardized tests || * Students are assessed based on knowledge of standards at a state and national level.
 * Tests are challenging and rigorous. || * Teachers may loose creativity by "teaching to the test."
 * Students become very frustrated with the tests if they don't pass. || * Tests are taken on the internet and scores are generated immediately. ||