ETEC 501- Session 8: Effective Assessment for e-Learning

This week's assignment asked us to develop "2-3 assessment activities/measures for the course hypothetically developed in Session 5".  Of course these activities should incorporate points and concepts from the reading (chapter 10) and articles (Authentic Assessment Toolbox) (Continuous Assessment: Guaranteed Learning?).  Particular attention should be taken to page 285 of the text, which is a table "Selecting appropriate assessment measures".
Also, we are supposed to incorporate assessment strategies of learning that we have experienced/used as a teacher and/or student that we find to be an effective method.

First off, our text makes it clear that in order to be effective, assessment should "denote the measurement of progress toward a learning goal" (text, pg. 266), and assessment strategies "should match course objectives and the students', instructor's, and institution's personalities" (Continuous Assessment: Guaranteed Learning?, pg. 1). Furthermore, "assessment measures" should be used "to promote learning by providing feedback to the learner and/or the instructor, to identify misconceptions held by the learner, to enhance motivation, and to signal to the learner what concepts are especially important" (text, pg. 266-267).  Therefore, as I set out to complete this assignment, I took time to make sure first, that I clearly understand the specific learning goals of this hypothetical course, as well as what I wish to assess and measure to make sure the learning goals are being learned and more importantly, that these goals are also meaningful and relevant to their future, life long learning.  One final point to add also, is that I decided to incorporate two different assessment strategies of learning to this mix; one that I have used as a teacher and one that I have "experienced" as a learner, just to make it more interesting and beneficial to the process.

Therefore, I began by reminding myself of the reasoning behind the project I will be teaching, which is based on William Kist's theory that "students should be able to both read critically and write functionally, no matter what the medium; we have broadened the concept of literacy to include multi modal projects so that no student feels isolated, and every student will gain better knowledge and understanding from the sharing of ideas" (Kist, W. 2004).  Moreover, the NCTE standards on Multi modal Literacies states "the use of different modes of expression in student work should be integrated into the overall literacy goals of the curriculum and appropriate for time and resources invested" (NCTE statement, October, 2009).

Link to Multi modal Literacies can be explored further: http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements
 /multimodalliteracies.

Link to the lesson plan I adapted: http://readwritethink.org

Now that the theory to practice has been identified. The next stage is to define the specific student objectives for the three assessment activities/measures:
Student Objectives

1. Student will organize their thoughts and express their stories by using PowerPoint presentations
2. Students will improve their technical skills by familiarizing themselves with PowerPoint.
3. Students will examine the lyrics to songs and describe how the music and words relate to their life stories.
4. Students will evaluate their own work. 

A. It's My Life Activity (Session 1) (Activity #1)


1. Present the PowerPoint autobiography assignment to students and explain the required elements. You can present a sample presentation to ensure clarity of expectations for the student.
2. Distribute the It's My Life Assignment and the It's My Life Project Rubric, as well as the It's My Life Assignment Self-Assessment to students and review the details (I have recreated the handout below so you can read what is expected)

• Students will select five important events in their lives.  Using written summaries of these events, they will create a PowerPoint multimodal autobiographies.
• Students may use recordings from the radio or their personal music collections (IPODS)
• Students will follow guidelines for fair use of copyrighted images and music.  (This topic will be discussed further during the session 2)
• Students will present their slide show online or in class.  Slide shows are limited to 5-10 minutes.

3. Have students begin the prewriting stage of their projects by brainstorming at least 15 major events in their lives.  Students can brainstorm with the whole class, small groups, online forum, or individually according to their learning contracts.  
Following are suggestions of what to brainstorm about:

• First day of school (e.g. preschool, kindergarten, day care, middle school)
• A special family vacation
• A family event that is of importance
• A personal achievement (e.g first place in a competition, award from organization, job)
• A personal loss (e.g. pet, or family member)

4. Explain that in this stage of the writing process, students should write down all of their ideas.  Lay down the ground rules that encourage all students to share their ideas with their group or online and discourage any student criticisms at this stage in the process.  Remind students that they will get a chance to peer edit and give their criticism during the activity that shows them how to Peer Edit later.

5.  After brainstorming has elicited 15 major events from each student, have them narrow down their events to the top 8-10.  Have them write a paragraph for each of these events.  This can be done at home or asynchronously submitted to the digital blackboard and saved for the next activity. 


6. Pass out the Self-Assessment handout re-created below and have each student complete this at home or online.
 
It's My Life Self Assessment: 

Reflect on your autobiography project by answering the following questions:

1. What do you think is the strongest/most effective part of your presentation? Why?
2. After viewing your final presentation, what would you change? Why?
3. What part of the project did you find most difficult? Why?
4. What part of the project did you enjoy the most? Why?

Make sure to explain that this self-assessment will be used to assess the final project and that it is important to refer to this as they create their presentations so that they are most likely to comply with all of the expectations.  


There is a rubric developed also that the class will use and this will be handed out as well as being posted to the online course website and the students will have access to review this as they need to further help them create a powerful and meaningful presentation that fulfills all of the desired learning goals.  



B. Finding Your Focus: The Writing Process and Peer Editing (Session 2 Activity)


1. Have students view a PowerPoint Presentation on the writing process.  Discuss the stages of the writing process: including Drafting, Revising, and Editing- Explain that students will go through each of these stages as they work on their autobiographies.  The final stage will be actually publishing their autobiographies in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.


2.  Have the students get out their Summaries of 8-10 Events they did for homework.


3. Discuss how students can get into trouble if they aren't sufficiently skilled in proofreading their presentations before submitting them for final review.  For this reason they will learn a tried and true strategy.


4.  This strategy is a mnemonic strategy called SCOPE, that will assist them in proofreading:

• S- Spelling.  Is the spelling correct?
• C- Capitalization.  Are the first words of each sentence, proper names, and proper nouns capatilized?
• O- Order of words. Is the syntax correct? (Does the sentence sound grammatically correct?)
• P- Punctuation.  Are there appropriate marks for punctuation where necessary?
• E- Express complete thoughts. Does the sentence contain a noun and a verb, or is it only a phrase?

This strategy is used because it is an acronym that can easily be remembered by students to help them develop their editing skills.


5. If this editing is being done online, then have the students work with a pre-assigned partner or have them practice on at least one other student in the class.  If this activity is completed during a face to face meeting, break the class into small groups so the students can really spend quality time working on this assignment, and if they didn't complete their summaries before this meeting, they can work in their groups to complete their summaries by asking for ideas from one another then using SCOPE to edit and proofread their ideas.


6.  To further explain how to peer edit, further explain the five editing points:

1. End punctuation
2. Beginning Capitalization
3. Complete sentences
4. Indented paragraphs
5. Spelling check

Assessment:7.  Create a checklist that the students can use throughout the rest of the class.  This could look like a chart with five lines one for each of the above criteria, with a yes or no check box next to each point, that the student can check off.  There could be a third box for "edits made" so that students could fill in the correction as well as the proper replacement.

8.  Pass out a worksheet with a pre-written page of information that has mistakes fitting the 5 editing guidelines listed above, and have each student mark it up with corrections,  followed by them filling in their editing checklist for further practice as well as quick assessment to make sure they are understanding this activity.


9.  Before ending for this day, remind the students that their next activity will involve them choosing a song that means something to them so they should be considering what they will be selecting before the next session.


C. Presentation Music and Image Planner Activity (Activity #3)


In this activity, (students)you will briefly describe five important events in your life.  Then for each one, write an image and a song to include in your presentation.  When you've finished, hand in the sheet for feedback and approval.  (Below is a recreation of the form used in this activity).


Event #1:________________________________________________________________

Image:__________________________________________________________________

Song:___________________________________________________________________



Event #2: ________________________________________________________________

Image:___________________________________________________________________


Song:____________________________________________________________________



Event #3:_________________________________________________________________


Image:___________________________________________________________________


Song:____________________________________________________________________



Event #4:__________________________________________________________________


Image:_____________________________________________________________________


Song:______________________________________________________________________



Event#5:___________________________________________________________________


Image:_____________________________________________________________________


Song:_______________________________________________________________________


Assessment:


Approved:________

Please revise:________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________


1.  During this activity, the students are left to their own imaginations and they are also supposed to narrow down their important events down to FIVE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS.  This follows along effective message design and learning in that theories state that five words, five sentences, and five ideas are the most effectively learned and retained to memory.  Usually students are happy to learn that they only need to create five slides and five songs per event.


2. Initiate the discussion by describing a significant life event from your own life (i.e birth of a child, a sibling, parent's divorce, graduating from college, getting married, becoming a teacher, etc).


3.  Pass out a sheet with a Sample Autobiography paragraph for students to review.

4. Have students think about the events they are considering along with their song that reminds them of it.  If this is a hard concept to grasp, give the example of a love song associated with a family member's wedding.

5. Break students into pre-assigned groups of 4 or 5, if online, or in face to face, and amongst these groups, write down the titles of the songs students associate with their events.  Then have them respond to the following questions:

• How does the song make you feel?
• What images come to mind when you think of the event?
• What images come to mind when you think of the song?

6.  Pass out the Presentation Music and Image Planner Worksheets and have each student fill in their responses to the above questions according to the appropriate event, image and song that corresponds.

7. Be sure to discuss lyrics with students to assure that song selections are classroom appropriate as determined by teacher and school policy.


8.  Emphasize that students should avoid songs that contain profanity or derogatory remarks towards race, gender, and/or religious beliefs.  Encourage students to discuss problem lyrics with you before class.  If they need to revise their song choices be sure to be sensitive and not condemning or critical negatively.  Artistic license can be introduced and discussed in class as a group to deal with controversial choices.


9. Before students begin to gather music for their presentations, have a discussion about "artistic license" and "copyright infringement" by asking the following questions:

• Have you ever downloaded music or other content from the internet? What other internet resources have you used?
• You will need to use music for your presentations.  What are some ways you can get the songs you'll need? From what sources can you down load music? Are all of these legal ways?
• Is it okay to use other peoples music in something you have created?

10. At this point, pass out the handout about "Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for School Projects"  (available as a download from www.readwritethink.org)..


11. If time allows, you can open the class dialog if face to face session, and share some samples of music along with the event and image that corresponds to the song.  This might help out students who may be struggling with this activity.  If their are struggling students, ask other students who have a clear understanding to share their selections with those who aren't quite understanding.


12.  Mention the relevant Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for this part of the presentation:

• Students can use 1-5 images from the same photographer or illustrator without permission.
• Up to 10% of a song can be used in a presentation.  That translates to 30 seconds from one song.
• Students must include a bibliography of any work used in their presentations.

13.  Explain that a further discussion of how to do a bibliography will be discussed online and in future activities.

14.  Before dismissing the class, review the students planners and sign off if they understand the assignment and have selected appropriate images and songs.  Approve each plan, providing feedback, or make suggestions for how to revise accordingly.

Effective Assessment Strategy of Learning :


For this course, my students are engaging in multiple assessment measures as well as utilizing multi-media, which caters to Gardner's Multiple Intelligences.  However, in order to help them stay focused and on task, I suggest using a "Report Planning Sheet" that uses KWL method of


"What I know/ What I Want to Find out/ Why I Want to Find out/ How I Will find out/ What I Learned".


Basically, I chose this idea of each student creating their autobiographies to ensure they would find relevance to what I am teaching, because what is more interesting to a youngster then themselves?
But just like anything else, they may not know everything they can about themselves, which is why this multimodal project is designed to give them each opportunities to learn from their family and friends more about who they are and what it is that makes them each so individual and interesting and important to the world.


I find that the KWL chart is a good way for someone to incorporate their prior knowledge, and add to this knowledge through the journey of discovering more about the What and Why they are who they are, through their relationships, their family story, their music, and their hopes and dreams.


In summary, the activities I have shared with you all allow for assessment measures that "provide immediate feedback, encourage reflection, enhance motivation, encourage collaboration, facilitate self-assessment, and demonstrate skill mastery (psycho-motor)" (text, pg. 285). All while ensuring the students gain proficiency and mastery of each specific learning goal mentioned at the beginning of this blog.  Thanks for reading and I encourage feedback.