Week 7: Assessment of Technology

Howard Gardner and Robert Marzano are the names of two people that are starting to be ingrained in my brain as my school continues to improve its instruction and assessment. If you have participated in Differentiated Instruction training, I am sure Gardner was mentioned. As my school alters curriculum, we are frequently reminded of the work of Marzano who states that curriculum needs to be both "guaranteed and viable."

The work of these education leaders and constant reinforcement of my principal, Patti Kennelley, has led me to believe that students need to know what they are supposed to know and be able to do.

When assessing technology, the same concept applies. If I assign that my students need to create a lab report about an experiment that we do in class, one student may choose a traditional written lab report where another may choose to create a podcast, video, or other multimedia presentation. No matter the medium, each student still needs to demonstrates the scientific skills that the lab was intended to showcase. In terms of assessing the medium, I would either use a rubric specific to each type of medium or I would use our school-wide rubric for the assessment of effective communication. If I choose the latter, it still assesses the use of technology, just not to the extent of a rubric specific to each product.