6.3 Reflection: Technology and Assessment

As I look toward a future in a blended classroom, I realize that I'm going to have to get creative with assessment. Since I will be operating in a blended environment, I have the benefit of using my usual methods as I explore a variety of online assessment tools.

One of the biggest challenges I anticipate facing is simply making sure that my students know how to use whatever tools I decide to use for assessment. While I already have several go-to methods of online assessment, I intend to explore and find new methods that allow me to engage my students in new ways and provide them with the additional benefit of gaining fluency in learning to use new digital resources. Because of this, I anticipate that I will end up devoting some class time to ensure the students know how to use the technology I will be asking them to use. The benefit of this is that I can use class time to have them try a new technology while using the process as a formative assessment for whatever topic we are studying. The downside is that the students may experience difficulties using the new technology and perform poorly on the formative assessment.

Since I will be incorporating using new technology tools throughout the year my students spend with me, one area I will need to become very good at is diagnosing the cause of poor performance in my students. I will have to work to determine whether it is the technology tool (or lack of access to technology tools) causing poor performance, or whether the student is struggling with content.

I expect that I will find a good rhythm for introducing new technology and integrating it into the curriculum (and therefore largely eliminating the need to diagnose the cause/effect relationship between new tools and poor performance), but that it will take some trial and error to find the right timing and approach.