Interdisciplinary/Thematic Webquest Summative Assessment

This technology-based assessment was given to ten 2nd grade students of average intelligence. It consisted of a Scavenger Hunt assignment in which the students were given a list of websites to explore and gather information and were later tested on recall of the information gathered. The Georgia standard that aligns to this assessment is ELAGSE2SL2: Recount or describe key ideas or details from written texts read aloud or information presented orally or through other media. At the end of the lesson, only 60 percent passed. The results showed that the students who were more accustomed to navigating the Internet easily completed the assessment. Four of the students failed the test. When making

The worksheet activity is a modified version of the ELDA recommended interactive activity of four corners. The modification to the activity is the individualized worksheet which mimics a sheet of chart paper placed in the four corners of the room with the differentiated content topic on each sheet. In the case of this assignment the topics are: present progressive, past progressive, future progressive, and the assessment question. This assignment is designed for a higher level English language proficient student, levels 3-5, in the grade range of sixth to eighth grades. According to Merchant and Young (2000) this interactive strategy, four corners, enhances student to student interaction while the modification contributes the use of a graphic

Of the six lessons in the C100 block of instruction, I consider the discussion on critical reasoning and problem solving to be the most career shaping discussion. As a field grade staff officer, I believe that one of the fundamental components to

Accordingly to Bell’s article for levels of inquiry, “The National Science Education Stamdards characterize inquiry instruction as involving students in a form of active learning that emphasizes questioning, data analysis, and critical thinking.” The level of inquiry that was planned in this 5E lesson is a guided inquiry. In this lesson plan, the students are investigating teacher-presented questions using student designed and selected procedures. As we may know, the less information that is given to a learner, the higher the level of inquiry will be.

“…If our goal is for children to become knowledgeable, critical thinkers who are good at solving problems, we need to pay attention to the ‘how’ of teaching. We need to stimulate curiosity” (Crawford, 2004, p. 5).

Albeit time consuming, these questions have been found to better test a student’s higher order thinking (40). MCQs are commonly used by instructors and are considered the more versatile type question to assess a student’s understanding (38). Typically, MCQs require only the recall of facts (34,39,40). However, MCQs, when well crafted, can assess deeper comprehension of a concept (40). MCQs typically assess the first 4 levels of Bloom’s: knowledge, comprehension, application, and analysis. The first 4 levels of Bloom’s can be further organized into cognitive types: lower (levels 1 and 2) and higher (levels 3 and 4) level thinking (34). The lower level questions characteristically assess surface learning, assessing a student’s ability to recognize and recall. In contrast, higher-level questions assess deeper learning, testing a student’s skill in analyzing problems and applying their

Student projects that involve technology elements cannot be evaluated by paper and pencil tests, so the teacher's ability to create an assessment tool that clearly explains the desired level of technology skill is important. Developing a rubric or checklist of what is expected from students can improve the teacher's instruction. Technology can add to your assessment; make sure you describe what you want in concrete terms, use examples of previous quality work, and make sure the tools are given to students at the time when the assignment is given. In addition, use the assessment tool to help guide revisions, use different assessors, and revise your tools each time their used; too many indicators restrict creativity (Johnson,2012,

Ariel, Higher order thinking questions are a great way to facilitates understanding in our students. I like to teach the the three levels of questioning to my students at the begging of the school year. Level one questions answer a simple question that can be found without a lot of hassle. Level two questions compare two or more things, and the level three questions are based on the feelings of the student. We use these questions everyday as we learn new skills. In the middle of the school year students start to label the questions that I ask as level one, two, or three.

In the publication by Gettinger and Lyon (1985) the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy was considered. They reported that within schools the most common activities and tasks that occurred were those that required recall of knowledge, comprehension and application. Tienken, C.H. et al (2010) reported similar findings, in that the types of questions asked by teachers in their study were what they termed reproductive; those questions that required recall, comprehension and application, the lower orders of Bloom’s taxonomy. When I read the findings of the above papers, I wondered whether it was true that questions to promote higher order thinking skills, are lacking. After reading the work of Marimuthu, Michael, Muthusamy, & Veeravagu, (2010) it became apparent

As a current third grade educator, representing a class that displays rigor is imperative to the learning community. Teaching a testing grade requires the training of proper use of the student critical thinking skills. The cognitive rigor matrix is an excellent strategy that supports the stages of building cognitive progression in our students. Rigor provides the students with depth of knowledge that supports recall and reproduction (memory), skills and concepts (comprehension), strategic thinking reasoning (applying critical thinking skill), and extending thinking. The rigor matrix supports more cognitively engaging and challenging tasks in our students. The DOK aids in developing higher order thinking abilities for all learners on different

Assessment is a learning tool and needs to be creative, unique and engaging. Students and teachers must understand the types of assessment. The two types of assessment are formal and informal quizzes or tests. Respectively, teachers with Web 2.0 skills are creative in the ways that summative and formative assessments are delivered. Technology has afforded the opportunity to revolutionize assessment for originality and immediate commentary. According to Bloom, students must have a foundation of the lower order thinking skills to arrive at higher order thinking skills. Create is the top of the Bloom taxonomy spectrum and the continuum. Teachers are required to assert an effort to make sure that they are testing the skills that are aligned with objectives. The technology should not be the test. Rather, the test has to authentically measure student acquisition of skills and student success. Student success is the goal. Therefore, the technology used for assessment should be user-friendly and easy to navigate for the teacher and the student.

In this section of the final project paper, I have made suggestions for the use of technology to be accessed by students for assessments. The students will use laptops for the assessments because laptops are more accessible and easy for students to manage in classrooms. The most important thing for students to understand is navigation from websites and follow instruction on the websites, in order to gather information. Also, students should be able to locate the subject information that will support their assignments.

Technological advancement and globalization have ushered the era of global economy which is "powered" by technology, fueled by information and driven by knowledge. The era of such technology starts from the very beginning when the earlier mode of communication like telegram, wireless and cable telephones were invented. But there is no doubt in saying that the biggest inventions of last century were computers and internet which are considered the best in every mode of communication and information. Since information continues to grow exponentially, educational institutes cannot confine their activities just to imparting merely a prescribed set of knowledge; students are rather required to be kept updated about the latest techniques arriving with every passing second. This new learning culture has been greatly promoted by the use of "information and communication technology ICT tools", which are defined as "a diverse set of technological tools and resources used to communicate, and to create, disseminate, store, and manage information" (Ramesh 2003). These ICT tools can play their parts in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of our education systems and in assessment of student's learning. According to TLTP Project ALTER 1993, "The two main uses of technology in the assessment process are identified as: using technology to perform the actions and cognitive processes a tutor would employ to arrive at a

Baum (2005) stated that “The challenges of educational equity and diversity created and broadened access to emerging technologies have implemented technology in classrooms from grade k – 12 are very important for students and teachers (para.1). An essential part of educating students is supporting their comprehension about the materials. Teachers have developed many types of assessments, both formative and summative with the use of technology to help students learn skills. Baum emphasized that technology is used to

According to an article written by L. Dee Fink on the subject, higher level learning includes the baseline of knowledge, but also learning how to learn and causing positive change within the life of the learner. In the class PowerPoint “Teaching for Higher Level Learning” we covered Bloom’s Taxonomy and Depth of Knowledge, which are two similar tools used when teachers want to implement higher level learning in their classrooms. Bloom’s Taxonomy consists of six differing levels of cognition from knowledge to evaluation. We learned that most classroom tasks stay at the knowledge or comprehension level and rarely push students further. DOK is similar in that there are four categories of cognition is describes. We used Depth of Knowledge to practice writing good, thought-provoking questions.