May 2003 — Features
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Testing Time: The Need for a New Focus On Technology and Results
One major advantage of embedding assessment within learning activities is the heightened focus on learning outcomes. Through the act of developing or choosing formative assessment measures, teachers must set out the kinds of skills and knowledge they are trying to impart through learning activities. This reflection, in turn, supports better activity design and articulation of learning goals to students.
Research shows that the use of formative assessment as part of instruction increases learning (Black and Wiliam 1998). Assessments of the skills needed for the 21st century knowledge economy can be made more feasible through technology by providing assessment tasks that reflect the features of real-world problems and offer flexible ways of storing classroom-assessment data. In addition, a new learning technology consultant needs to be hired by the school district to blend curriculum and assessment.
Some advantages of these approaches include all of us becoming more educated in a practical way about what works and why. We might see an end to practices that lead to software-access rationing, which sometimes occurs when individual licenses are just too expensive. In addition, schools and districts might be able to aggregate demand for highly effective software. By aggregating demand in this way, groups of school districts, if not states, could challenge vendors with RFPs that request software vendors to pay attention to their collective needs based on the type of data examination referred to above. They need to determine that need based on an analysis of their own test results, which indicate where students are typically failing to understand. Thus, districts need to challenge vendors to provide evidence that they can meet this need.
Conclusion
The initial thrill of education technology seems over for now. Since most schools are connected to the Internet, the pressing need is not so much for expansion, but the maintenance of what currently exists. The only exception is the relentless appetite for faster connections. With budget w'es all too real as many states face multibillion-dollar deficits, the temptation might be to cut back on technology spending.
Clearly, technology leaders cannot be immune to the new cry for accountability and the need to show the results of technology investments. These leaders need to respond with deliberation and a new sense of clarity, rather than be as reactive as they were in the old days with an ad hoc examination of vendors' projects and claims. They must force vendors to work together on a new generation of products that can provide increased help at the individual student, teacher, parent and district levels.
A good starting point is for them to seek allies with parents who say they mainly purchase computers so their children can learn better, but continue to notice their children doing invaluable things and carrying home their crushing backpacks full of costly textbooks. The testing time for everyone has come.
References
Black, P., and D. Wiliam. 1998. "Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assess-ment." Phi Delta Kappan. October.
President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), Panel on Educational Technology. 1997. "Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United States."
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