Teaching with Technology #4

When I first began teaching, I asked a veteran teacher if we were testing our students over reading or their knowledge of science. She said what did I mean by that, I replied by saying well what if we have struggling readers then they will not be able to read and comprehend what the question is asking them and not really testing if they know the science content. She told me we have always done it like this, the students should be able to read at the grade level they are currently in. Back, then I never thought about incorporating larger font or virtual labs as I read about in this week’s readings. I was glad that she transferred out of our school and we were lucky enough to have a principal, at the time that believed that we should give the students a choice of multiple assessments to determine if they knew the content and in what areas they were still struggling so that we could go back and re teach needed skills. I taught at a school that allowed us to come in during the summer with our team to plan and create assessments for the next school year. We would begin by formulating ideas for varied assessment types over the same given skill/same content: paper pencil, projects, activities/ hands on, computer based, and or ongoing assessments. During this week’s readings, I thought about my teaching days where our focus was, " Ongoing assessment, teachers can accommodate differences in strategic networks by providing students with multiple means for expressing what they know, such as the option to respond by writing, speaking, drawing, creating an animation or video, or developing a multimedia presentation" (Rose & Meyer, 2002, chapter 7). I really think I was making a difference and meeting the individual needs of my students. I had several assessments that my students could choose from, it was no surprise that most of the time students didn't choose the paper pencil assessments. I was able to meet my student's individual styles by providing an array of assessments, they could self- select from and at the same time, I was provided with data that I could in turn use for future planning. Believe it or not, students were excited every time we gave an assessment because they wanted to see the choices from which they could choose, I wish my students now had that as their reality: STAAR is not something that makes them excited. My students are ten years old and all they know is that they must pass to be promoted, talk about pressure. Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Chapter 7. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology Web site. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/