Digital Composition and Assessment
Evaluation and Assessment
of Contemporary Compositions |
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Collaborative, multi-modal compositions create a persistent challenge for the assessment of student work. How can you effectively gauge student involvement and learning in collaborative groups, when the amount of writing, editing, managing is sometime uneven or hard to readily evaluate? Sometimes self-grading helps assess student learning. Often, the teacher needs to learn how to use different assessment criteria across the various projects (e.g., essays, web design, multimedia production, discussion board management and sound effects), and how both individuals and small groups could be accountable for their learning. The courageous teacher eventually devises ways to address these assessments challenges, employing informal assessment strategies (e.g., checklists, note-taking, observation and conferencing) as well as formal strategies (e.g., grades for completed projects). Yet, teachers may always remain concerned about whether he/she was adequately gauging some students’ work. |
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| 1. | My advice is to hold up high standards, yet be flexible in your grading. Often it will take several years for teachers to become truly comfortable in their evaluations of these projects. |
| 2. | Look for unexpected successes. |
| 3. | Focus instruction on student inquiry and critical thinking skills by responding to students individual responsibilities in process and carefully modeling critical thinking skills at every opportunity. |
| 4. | It has been my experience that, even when student production has appeared uneven, there is great promise in establishing a set of meta-cognitive behaviors that have proven to develop better writers. Teachers often see PowerPoint presentations as the end of the learning experience, when they are really first drafts to a wider audience. |
| Standards | |
| ISTE: International Society for Technology in Education Home | |
| ISTE: Technology in Education Learning and Leading | |
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| Communication in a global society makes day-to-day collaboration crucial for survival in the 21st century. If the NETS•S Standard 2 expects students to interact, collaborate, and publish with their peers, I would pose the question, are we expecting the same from teachers and administrators? | |
| Evaluation, Assessment, and Grading (University of Missouri at Columbia) | |
| International Society for Technology in Education Student Profiles for grades K-12 A general set of profiles describing technology (ICT) literate students at key developmental points in their precollege education. The profiles highlight a few important types of learning activities in which students might engage. | |