Thoughts on Assessment in Digital Age

We have the capability to instantaneously acquire a student's understanding of nearly anything taught. Here at ISTE 2011, vendors abound with clickers, forms, surveys, exit tickets, computer graded writing, peer assessment, class exchanges and so many other options to grade on the spot. I was particularly fascinated by the Virginia SOL tests this year. Being computerized, these high stakes tests are administered en masse and results delivered within days. The flurry of teachers who flocked to get their results surprised me. I always understood assessment to be what the student had achieved. But teachers see these tests as a measure of what they achieved. The results are not provided to the individual students until much later and have very little meaning to them except a pass/no pass message.

Ok, I may have my formative and summative assessments confused you say? I'm not the only one. Teachers are frequently calling their end of the week quizzes as formative and the on-going project as summative. And they love the instantaneous gradebook fillers that come from the computerized world. Spreadsheets are easy to import. In our district we use these online tests as formative sometimes and summative other times. Not only are students confused as to why they are assessed every step of the way, but there is no rhyme or reason for the assessment in their eyes. Based on observations, students see these online tests as a collaborative game to beat a score. Teachers do use them occasionally to pad the gradebook too. Either way, I think as adults we would resent our employers evaluating us on 5 or more skill areas every 15 minutes, especially on a Monday. There are a lot of student response systems here at ISTE. I personally think they are wonderful uses of technology. I see them as a method to deliver and focus instruction, not really an assessment device. So with that perspective, they are excellent advances in the classroom. But technology doesn't always have to be instantaneous to be an advancement. We should look at the other alternatives available to us in a digital world. I like to think of it in medieval terms as the "masterpiece." Remember that in order to learn a trade in the middle ages there were steps along the way such as apprentice, journeyman and then master. In order to obtain master status, a final culminating project defined their very best efforts. How does technology aid in this type of assessment. Students can produce many masterpieces over the period of their school career. These are collected digitally and represent the student's attained level of mastery. I'm advocating cloud based digital portfolios but with more student control. It is only fair to notify students when they will be assessed and to give them the best optimum chance to succeed in that assessment. Students should be the owners of their portfolio, given lessons on good portfolio presentations and rubrics for what to include. As they progress and move from school to school, the portfolio should follow and evolve as technology changes. Let them put their best foot forward and take the time to show us something outstanding.

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