BRENDAN C. A. MENG
Assessment Evidence
Technology Assisted Assessment
As a teacher, I pride myself on the diversity and versatility of the types of assessments I use in my classroom. Technology of course has its downsides within a classroom, but when properly framed with clear intentions and expectations, technology assisted assessments can streamline data acquisition and analysis while simultaneously engaging learners in multiple ways of demonstrating knowledge and skill as part of the assessment process. Additionally, many students perform better on technology based assessments simply because they are so familiar with ingesting and comprehending information from a screen. However, as familiarity with one type of technology does not always transfer to another, accommodations and modifications are often still required for learners with disabilities which is why I am continuously seeking appropriate ways to employ technology to support assessment practice to engage learners more fully and to assess and address learner needs. .
This section will showcase some of the various types of technology, applications, and websites I use for both formative and summative assessments within my teaching practice. The artifacts and their explanations below capture my commitment to using multiple types of assessment processes to support, verify, and document learning. Employing multiple types of assessments provides my instructional decision-making process with multiple types of data from multiple sources which I use to identify learner strengths and needs to promote overall learner growth. Some types of technology assisted assessment are more revealing of learning gaps and learners' needs than others, but all, I believe are beneficial in that these types of assessments are becoming more familiar and relatable to this and future generations of students to come.
CK-12 Interactive Textbook
This platform makes initial formative assessment on a topic effective with how customizable each aspect of assessment is, from the style and content of questions to the grading format and editable rubrics. Although there are pre-made review questions, I base my questions from previously released SOLs to more accurately assess student learning against the state standards. As you can see on the last page above, I generally keep the rubric rather simple because there is a comment section which allows for individualized, descriptive feedback in addition to the general rubric regarding student responses. This platform also allows students to send student-to-teacher messages if they are ever confused or need further assistance in order to fully grasp a concept. I understand that timeliness of feedback from teachers can impact student success tremendously, I have the app downloaded on my phone with notifications enabled for messages and submissions which allows me to respond to my students within a matter of minutes, which I am committed to doing. In addition to this online interactive textbook's accessibility, another beneficial aspect this textbook is that it aligns neatly with state standards, containing extension readings on each area of the content and beyond. Each of my five primary classes has their own class section on Schoology, which students access regularly for a variety of functions such as printing and completing physical missing assignments or notes, finding keys to assignments as examples of exemplary work, and completing required weekly homework playlists.
The assessment evidence above displays one week's homework playlist (page 1), a screenshot of a reading from the CK-12 interactive textbook (page 2), and a student's responses and my feedback to the homework review questions (page 3) from my online classroom website, Schoology. The formative assessment opportunities and the resulting data from this platform provides excellent opportunities for student response data analysis as I work to understand patterns and gaps in learning which I am able to use to guide future planning and instruction. As displayed by page 3 above, this platform enables me to easily provide meaningful feedback to all learners.
Kahoot!
Game-based learning is an excellent way to boost student engagement in the assessment process, primarily because there is an element of competition between students and the immediate feedback to students displayed by the platform. Assessment platforms such as Kahoot! also provide an avenue for a differentiated learning experience for my non-typical learners as this style of learning and assessment engages learners in a non-traditional avenue for demonstrating knowledge and skill as part of the assessment process.
Most teachers are familiar with Kahoot!, however, I see few utilize it to its full potential as an assessment tool from which to gather instructional-driving data. I utilize Kahoot! for these two primary reasons: formative assessment data acquisition and boosting engagement. The data provided by Kahoot! following a game is plentiful and can be organized by a multitude of factors, such as 'difficult questions.' Often, I will utilize this online assessment tool as a review in preparing students for an upcoming quiz or test.
[Screenshots of Kahoot! evidence and assessments]. Retrieved from https://create.kahoot.it/reports/my-reports.
In the evidence provided above, students had the most difficulty in selecting to correct answer to three of the twelve total mitosis and meiosis questions. These are questions which I build time into each lesson to immediately review and provided extensions on their explanation. Not only do I provide a general review of the content surrounding these questions because of the data provided, but I identify which answer choices were most selected by students and explain specifically why those answers are incorrect. In this way, I am able to model and structure processes that guide learners in examining their own thinking and learning as well as the performance of others. This teaching practice shows that I understand the positive impact of effective descriptive feedback for learners and by understanding when this type of learning activity and assessment is appropriate, it demonstrates my abilities as a teacher to balance the use of formative and summative assessments as appropriate to support, verify, and document learning.
Performance Matters Online Testing Platform
This assessment platform, being online-based, is a close representation of what students will encounter on their end of course (EOC) science SOL as far as format and content are regarded. Within each subject there are pre-made question banks which I can select from and compile to create an exam, or I can create my own questions in various formats. This assessment platform also contains a question review tool which mimics that on the EOC SOL in that there is a question review screen identifying to the student which questions still have yet to be answered prior to submitting their answers. I instructed each student to utilize this tool to their benefit and to become familiar with it as it will ensure they have answered each question on the assessment. This is a deliberate instruction practice in preparing students for success on their EOC SOL because in order to maximize their score, students must select an answer choice for each and every question presented as no credit is given for questions left blank on this assessment, identical to the scoring procedures on their EOC SOL. By exposing students to these types of assessments, it shows that I understand how to prepare learners for assessments and how to make accommodations in assessments and testing conditions.
The above evidence displays several screenshots capturing the data assessment power of the Performance Matters platform. The Data on the sixth page above shows a particular student's performance on the Cell Theory, Organelles assessment compared to the rest of the class. In this case, the student achieved an overall score of a 73% as compared to the class average of a 52%. The results also display data on which answer choice(s) the student chose and the total percentage of students whom answered each question correctly at the top of each question's column on page three. Pages four and five are screenshots of two questions included on the assessment which displays the various formats of questions students may encounter on such electronic assessments, such as their EOC SOL.
What is really useful about this assessment tool is that each of the pre-made questions are linked to Virginia Science standards, the depth of knowledge required, and question interactions (what the student is required to do in order to answer the question correctly) as displayed by the box delineating question 1-7 on the third and seventh page of the evidence above. By utilizing this platform as an assessment tool which links questions directly to Virginia Standards of Learning, it shows that I know when and how to evaluate and report learner progress against such standards. Additionally, these assessments display my abilities to design assessments that match learning objectives with assessment methods and minimize sources of bias that can distort assessment results.
As not all students have access to high-speed internet at home, another great aspect of this assessment platform is the ability for me to provide my students with a physical paper copy on an as needed or as requested basis. The two pieces of evidence above are the paper version of the assessment (top) as well as the accompanying student answer sheet (bottom), as provided by the Performance Matters platform. This scan sheet includes all answer choices for questions, such as question 10, which the student may be required to choose multiple or from more than answer choices A, B, C, and/or D. By providing these resources for my students who do not have regular access to the internet, this process further displays my commitment to making accommodations in assessments and testing conditions.