Saturday, October 17, 2015

Assessing Student Learning through Apps, Games, & Projects

Today we presented Tech EDGE 15: Assessment of Learning through Apps, Games, & Projects.
In our visits to classrooms Guy Trainin and I are seeing teachers using innovative 21st century instruction. The next big step after innovating practice is figuring out how to evaluate innovative student products. We pulled together innovative educators from the field to share innovations in teaching and the evaluation practices that come with them.

We began with a Keynote by William Vann, Instructional Technology Coordinator at Immanual Lutheran School in St. Charles, MO. Under the title Authentic Moments: Maintaining Student Authenticity with Technology, Will led over 120 preservice and inservice teachers on a journey to his classroom to create circuits using a Makey Makey and use that device to play games and musical instruments online. Through expert questioning by the teacher and trial and error by students, they begin to understand what makes a circuit and how to use it productively. Will summarized the authentic moment as:
  • forming lasting learning that "comes from a culmination of learning through our frustrations and failures," yet it's what we remember for a lifetime.
  • "Creativity is an outlet for that moment."
  • "The authentic moment is accessible for all students."
Will helped teachers set guidelines for student performance that meet standards. He suggested such rubric areas as: does the project work? did they create clear instructions for use? can it be reproduced?

Other teachers shared ideas for integrating technology to engage students as they teach content and collect data about learning across the curriculum at the same time. Examples shared include:
  • Kahoot and Quizizz to get every student response
  • Google Classroom and Actively Learn to organize learning and give formative assessments during reading
  • engaging students in blogging and providing instant feedback online to improve writing and clarify content
  • critical thinking via Minecraft for alternative assessments that clarify learning
  • students creating iMovies and online graphic organizers to demonstrate learning
  • gamifying the classroom emphasizing engagement and individual accountability
The expert teachers provided examples of how they assess creative student products for ISTE Standards and Common Core State Standards. Students ARE learning as they create innovative multimedia projects that demonstrate learning. We would be interested to know how you know your students are learning when they use technology in learning.


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