Tech+546+Module+6--Reflection

=**Tech 546--Assessments--Reflection**= ==The teacher in one of our 10th grade honors Social Studies class used project based activities for the entire second semester. She is a relatively young teacher who enjoys using technology and understands that her students do not reach the same level of achievement when instruction takes a “drill and kill” traditional strategy.==

==During our discussion about this instructional method, she relayed that she felt that since all of their assignments during the second semester were project based, that the semester exam should also be project based. She was concerned because our district requires that a written exam be given on a designated date and she felt that would be an unfair assessment of student achievement.==

==After much discussion, we arrived at a compromise that would satisfy the requirement of the district for testing and provide a fair assessment for the students. Students were to complete a project from a list of topics, present the project to their class, and write a reflection paper based on the research they did for their project. By combining the scores of the project, oral presentation, and written reflection paper, the students had ample opportunities to demonstrate their master of the topic oftheir project.==

==After the assignment was completed and grades averaged, I found that she did not give the students a rubric prior to their beginning the project and she not did use a rubric to grade the project. She felt that with so many different types of projects, she could not develop a rubric. I do understand her difficulty as I developed the one rubric to try to evaluate the variety of different projects that were completed.==

==As I assessed the projects, I found that there were things that I would have felt more thorough in the assessment if there was a basic rubric for all projects and a modification of requirements that would depend upon the method the student used to create the project. Most of all, the students should have had a rubric so that they would know exactly what they had to include in their project. Students were not required to cite sources; this disturbs me. If we don’t model appropriate digital citizenship for our students and require it of our students we are failing to prepare them to be future leaders.==

==I can’t imagine my District Superintendent telling me to put technology into the classrooms and not giving me some guidelines for implementation. This is what we do when we give students assignments and don’t provide them with guidelines to ensure that they complete the assignment correctly. My hope is that I can work with this teacher on providing rubrics, checklists, or guidelines next year; I think student projects will be better and it will be easier for the teacher to accurately and fairly assess the students.==

PDF of Reflection Written in APA Format [|Tech 546 Module 6 Reflection.pdf]