Chapter 3: Developing Lessons with Technology

Photo credit to Shannan Muskopf on Flickr

Focus Question: How can teachers evaluate and assess their students? For the majority of teachers, tests, quizzes, work sheets, and writing assignments are used to assess the performance of their students. In terms of tests there are norm-referenced tests, which compare a students performance to other students of the same demographic and criterion-referenced tests, which compare a student's performance to a set of specific objectives or standards. Within these parameters there are also standard-based assessments that measures a student's performance in terms of national, state, or local standards, almost always from standardized testing, and instructionally supportive assessment that involves the use of multiple forms of evaluation data, participation, timeliness of finished assignments, portfolios, and rubric completion and adherence to enable a teacher assess the progress of the students.

Tech Tool:
I have always been an advocate to end the unfair and biased use of standardized tests that are used throughout the country. FairTest is an advocacy group that works to do just that: "...end the misuses and flaws of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, teachers and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial." The website fairtest.org is an unbelievable source for information on the disadvantages of using standardized tests and how harmful they could be to measure a students development and a teacher's assessment . The website explains just how to fight standardized tests and great information on why standardized tests are wrong and ineffective. The website offers many articles and newsletters that reference countless amounts of evidence that prove the abuses of using standardized tests to determine a student's progress a teacher's evaluation. FairTest states their mission perfectly, "We place special emphasis on eliminating the racial, class, gender, and cultural barriers to equal opportunity posed by standardized tests, and preventing their damage to the quality of education."

Summary and Connection:
Chapter three of Transforming Learning With New Technologies by Maloy, R.W., Verock-­‐O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B. P was nice break from the overload of information that the first two chapters provided. The chapter clearly stated what a lesson development was and what exactly goes in to creating a lesson plan. The chapter explained the many methods uses to evaluate a student's progress and development and the advantages and disadvantages of each method. the chapter was easy to read and straight to the point. I was pleased that the text appeared to sided with the belief that standardized tests were harmful if not at least ineffective. One statement the chapter made that stuck with me was that "teachers will teach how they were taught". It was interesting to think about how I can personally break away from the lecture dominated lessons I was taught with and bring more discussion and creative thinking into my teaching technique.

Food For Blog:
http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/