Module 7

Not only is assessment necessary to determine whether students have learned what teachers think they have taught, but it also informs the design of instruction and can direct adjustments of the specific teaching and learning strategies that are used over time.

Bauer (2014) p. 131

Teachers should employ backward design when planning for student learning and assessment. It is important to have the end in sight at the beginning so learning can sequentially lead students to mastering the goal. This also helps teachers plan necessary assessments along the way. The opening quote I used above talks about what teachers “think they have taught”. It is important as a teacher to be constantly cognizant if what you are intending to teach to your students is actually being received, proceeded, and understood by them. Using assessments, and a variety of them, is the measurement of how this process is implemented.

We spent a lot of time this week using and designing google forms. I have used forms several times before, but I am elated to now know there is an education template which allows teachers to successfully implement forms as a means of assessment. The answer key feature is fantastic. I experimented briefly with the flubaroo add-on and that as well seems practical and helpful. Being able to e-mail results to students in the click of a button is incredibly time saving. Additionally, not having to correct assessments which have multiple choice of drop down options is a huge time saver. Of course the teacher will still need to read through short answer question responses, but that is an important part of assessing and the teacher should be reading those.

Rubrics, when applicable, are encouraged.  They are more sophisticated than rating scales and checklists. Bauer (2014) explains the following about rubrics: “They include a qualitative rating scale. To this they add a description of the evaluative criteria being used for each level of achievement” (p. 138). Rubrics empower students by explaining to them in clarity what is expected. They also allow the teacher to assess students fairly and accurately. Several websites exist which will generate rubrics for teachers or at least serve as a starting point. Creating your own rubrics in google docs or sheets makes them easily accessible, editable, and saves them.

Many of the projects for this week clearly demonstrated how technology can positively influence professional productivity. As I mentioned above, I am most excited to discover how google forms can be used for assessment purposes. At my current school, I am on the school newsletter committee and we have been using Microsoft publisher. While the program does what we need it to do, the problem we have had is only one person can edit it as a time because it is not cloud based. I did not know there were templates in the google suite for newsletters. Using the cloud based software will alleviate that issue. Although I am leaving this job and starting in a new district, I will happily pass this information along to my current colleagues in the hopes they can use it next year. If I produce newsletters in my new position, I will use the google template. I have used google calendar for many years now, so that technology was not new to me. I do enjoy however that you can have several calendars each with different sharing settings.

Resources:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York: Oxford University Press.