This I Believe NOW about Assessments

I have read a lot of research and reflected about the topic of assessments since my last podcast.  For the most part, what I believed to be true about assessments was reaffirmed; however, I was enlightened by some new concepts.  

And with that, I present to you my revamped This I Believe Now about Assessments podcast:

The Value of Student Feedback on Blogs

The concept of blogging has become rapidly interesting to me, and when I become very interested in something, I spend hours researching and reading about it.  The countless reading I have done about blogging convinced me that I should integrate blogging into my curriculum because of its many benefits:

- empowers students
- enables students to have a voice that they can't find during classroom hours
- promotes creativity (with writing style and the pictures and links they can add)
- builds stronger writers because their writing is being published
- students can help each other grow as writers because of the commenting feature
- allows for reflection (**ahem- something I learned long after my students had been blogging)

After a few months of student blogging, I decided to categorize my data and conceptualize my findings so that I could make blogging more beneficial for my students and help other teachers who decide to incorporate blogging into their curriculum.  

Here is my research in a presentation format using both prezi and present.me: 
The Value of Student Feedback

Now I'm A Believer...(Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)...In E-Portfolios!

I was once taught that a portfolio is a collection of one's work.  When you think about it, that's true but also so limiting.  Portfolios must be capable of much more than just showcasing one's work.  Why else would we, as professionals, create one or even have our students create one.  There's got to be much more significance attached to the intent of a portfolio - I just never knew what the significance was.  It was not until I watched Hellen Barret's presentation about the possibilities and benefits of student portfolios that I became an instant believer.  Every single young adult and adult should create a portfolio for two simple reasons: we all have a unique story to tell, and we should all participate in reflection.  

In her video "E-Portfolios: Digital Stories of Deep Learning", Barret reveals the limitless potential of not just ordinary, paper-based portfolios, but electronic portfolios.  After all, we are amidst an era in which technology is an integral part of our everyday lives; so it makes sense that our students no longer create paper portfolios, and, instead, create what's called e-portfolios that are done online.  In retiring paper portfolios, we are exposing our students to more opportunities.  Students create more than essays and paper projects; they also create websites and videos and many more media based mediums.  Those forms for media literacies should also be a part of our students portfolios, because our students are creative, well-rounded beings, and they should reflect on all the materials they produce - paper and technology based.

Since our students are unique individuals that have their own story to tell, we need to make sure that, as teachers, we are allowing our students the opportunity to have choice and voice when they create their portfolios.  If we mandate what to include, where to include it, and what to say about it, students will lose their individual identity and they won't be making authentic meaning.  Barret quotes Paulson & Paulson when she says: "A portfolio tells a story.  It is a story of knowing.  Knowing about things...Knowing about oneself...Knowing an audience...Portfolios are students' own stories of what they know, why they believe they know it, and why others should be of the same opinion."  What students know and how they perceive what they know differs from student to student.  What students have also experienced in their lives differs from student to student.  And how students write or create differs from student to student.  As you can see, each student's portfolio should contain different material, and all around look different from their peers' portfolios, because they are all unique individuals.  Just like we differentiate instruction to meet the needs of individual students, our students portfolios should also be differentiated.

Barret suggests that perhaps the most important element of creating a portfolio is the reflection that should take place once students have choice and voice about what goes into their portfolio.  Barret calls reflection the "heart and soul" of e-portfolios because they help our students "think about thinking".  As a result, we should guide our students to view e-portfolios more as a conversation than a presentation.  What does our work say about us?  What do we have to say about our work?  How might our audience perceive our work?  Reflection is ideal and sounds great in theory, but how do we get students to reflect on what they include in the portfolio instead of just uploading artifacts?  Barret suggests having students reflect on their portfolio through blogging.  In this case, the blog should serve as a reflective journal where students can write about their authorial decisions, what they learned, their strengths and weakness, make goals, etc.  Barret maintains that there are really two elements to a portfolio: a working element (where work is viewed as a process and reflection takes place) and a presentation element (where work is showcased).  If you look at a portfolio as just a presentation element, learning does not take place.  John Dewey once said, "We learn from reflecting on experience."  True effort and higher order thinking skills come into play when we ask our students to view the creation of their portfolio as a process that doesn't stop after they hit upload.  Students need to see themselves as an author that has an online presence that communicates their passions.  And the only way our students will see themselves as such is if we have them reflect.  Through their reflection, they will grow as a writer, creator, critical thinker, analyzer, synthesizer, problem solver, etc.  Ultimately, the work students upload to their e-portfolio will undoubtedly become richer because their reflection will push them into new learning territories.

New Media: The Elephant in the Classroom We Shouldn't Fear

The phrase new media is becoming increasingly common.  Administrators, teachers, parents, and society all want our young people to be new media capable.  And they should, as it is a current demand; it is our reality.  Technology is a major part of our world, and if we want our young people to be able to thrive in our world and continue to make changes that better our nation, they should be new media literate.

Because new media is so, well, new (and broad!), it can be quite intimidating.  I say, embrace the unknown; the world is at our fingertips (literally with the internet), and we are therefore capable of learning virtually anything.  Therefore, teachers should embrace new media - research it, learn it, explore it, share it.

New media offers another realm to our students that may just help them learn better than they would with traditional print.  It essentially allows for differentiation, because it enables students to work within a new medium for which they can prove mastery.  Some students really struggle with print; therefore, new media can be the gateway that allows those students to view material differently and create, analyze, or synthesize more effectively.  Imagine this: picture collages or picture videos; podcast or screen cast productions; webpage design; nationwide discussions; blogging; Glogster.  Those are just a few opportunities that new media can provide for our students.

Sure, we have students who love putting pen to paper or holding a book, and that's OK, but what if we could get those same students to love using those same skills but in a different way by using new media?  I think those students may take their learning to a whole new level. Not all students may love using new media.  But the fact of the matter is we need to expose our students to various forms of new media, and allow them to practice and create so that they gain experience.  As students gain experience with new media, they will get more comfortable with that form of media and may even learn to appreciate it, if they don't already.  Ultimately, teachers need to strike a balance between print and new media; both forms provide different opportunities for our students and both are equally important.

Since it's clear new media needs to be an integral part of the classroom like print has been all these years, how do we assess it?  It's vastly different than print, because it has abstract pictures or hyperlinks or new forms of organization, to name a few.  This medium, like print, can be viewed as a work of art.  For example, take a look at this Glogster:



It incorporates text, images, video, color schemes, etc.  How should a teacher assess that?  I imagine another student's Glogster on the Bubonic Plague in the class looks very different than the one pictured.  Doesn't that make assessing the Glogster kind of tricky?  Well, I'd like us to think about an analytical essay or a personal memoir that our students may write.  Doesn't each look different from one another, too?  And aren't those as equally challenging to assess, much like this Glogster?  The fact of the matter here is assessing is tricky business, no matter what you are assessing.

With that said, I'd like to borrow the idea from Madeleine Sorapure that when assessing new media, we must consider some of the same elements we would use when assessing print texts (Between Modes: Assessing Student New Media Compositions).  There needs to be a merge between what we would expect of our students when they write a print text and what we expect of our students in the new medium of media literacy.  There is no magic way to assess new media, and it greatly depends on the medium they are creating.  This link provides basic elements for teachers to consider when assessing new media; I find it to be a good starting place.  I think it should be shared with students, too.  Both teachers and students can use it to start a discussion about the form of new media they will be creating.  Furthermore, it's important to juxtapose that criteria with many examples so that discussion can take place for what makes each effective/ineffective.  That kind of discussion will show students that each decision, like color scheme and layout, is purposeful.  Teachers may even want students to write out a rationale that explains each decision on the form of new media they created.  In doing so, students will make sure there is purpose behind every decision, and it will help you assess their work because it might help clarify.  Eventually, as both you and your students get comfortable assessing and creating new media, the rationales may no longer be necessary.