There are two types of assessment, formative and summative. Formative assessment takes place before a learning experience has been completed and notifies the teacher what needs to be learnt to achieve the learning objective. Teachers also use classroom behaviour and responses as formative assessment to judge how well their teaching strategies are working in the classroom. Summative is at the end of a learning experience and summarises how much a student has learnt. Summative assessment is what provides a grade for each subject. Employers, schools and government bodies use this as a measure of students’ suitability in a certain area of study or work also how well a school or teacher is performing. (Simmons & Hawkins, 2009) Simmons and Hawkins (2009) also state that all students learn from effective assessment and are more likely to do well if clear instruction of what is expected of that assessment item is given. Under achieving students gain most from this clear instruction as they often don’t have the confidence to ask for clarification. (Simmons & Hawkins, 2009)
Kent and Campbell (2013) state that “the most effective way to improve student learning is to use technology in both teaching and assessment.” (page 34) ICT gives students an option as to how to carry out their assessment item. Students given this amount of freedom is likely to be chaos but with that amount of choice students can choose a way that suits them and their learn style therefore they have more to gain from the experience. (Simmons & Hawkins, 2009) There are many different ICTs that students and teachers can use to perform assessment items, including” blogs, wikis, social networking sites, Google apps (such as Google docs) and learner response systems (similar to online exams). (Kent & Campbell, 2013)
By asking questions and writing criteria that ask students to analyse, evaluate or create something using knowledge that they remember (Bloom’s Taxonomy) from class a teacher can encourages higher order thinking. (Krathwohl, 2002) Simmons and Hawkins (2009) suggest if a teacher increases the number of questions in an assessment item that use a higher level of cognitive processes to 50 per cent or more this will result in more relevant contributions in class, higher relevant student- student interaction and metacognitive thinking (questioning their own way of thinking). (Krathwohl, 2002) An inhibitor of better cognitive processing is the teachers view of their students if a teacher asks low level questions (such as fact recall) students identify this as them having lower cognitive ability. The more students practice higher level questions the higher their self confidence in answering them gets therefore the teachers’ expectations. (Simmons & Hawkins, 2009)
I believe that Simmons and Hawkins are correct in saying that if students are continually asked questions of low cognitive process they will not have the self confidence in answering higher order thinking questions. I also believe that using ICT to enhance cognitive processes in assignments would be less intimidating to students than long response questions in the form of an exam or essay.
Leher (1959) The Element Song is an example of how traditional methods of study can be swapped for an ICT to enable people with different learning styles more opportunity to remember content. Students can use it to remember all the elements of the periodic table, this could be useful for a middle school chemistry test.
Note: If you can't see the audio player you may need to update your web browser so that it is HTML 5 enabled.
References
Simmons, C. & Hawkins, C. (2009). Assessment in ICT. In Teaching ICT (pp. 136-169). London: SAGE. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/lib/uqlib/docDetail.action?docID=10420163&p00=teaching%20ict
Kent, P. & Campbell, C. (2013). Technology for Assessment. In L., Jordan (Ed.), Macmillan Masterclass: Assessment for Teaching Today (pp. 34-43). Sydney: Macmillan Teacher Resources.
Krathwohl, D. (2002). A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview. Theory Into Practice, 41(4), 212-218. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2#.UaFxipzW6AI
Leher, T. (Singer). (1959). The Element Song [audio file]. Retrieved from http://dc395.4shared.com/img/983717542/ab505011/dlink__2Fdownload_2F3A6Skgbu_3Ftsid_3D20130522-22458-ff0c9960/preview.mp3
Exam Image [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.baseformula.com/blog/tag/exams/
No comments:
Post a Comment