Category: assessment
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Troubles for NCLB: It may not be improving achievement and it corrupts the profession
These are my notes from Dr. David Berliner’s presentation this morning at the Texas Tech University College of Education annual research conference. The title of his presentation is, “Troubles for the NCLB Act: It may not be improving achievement and it corrupts the profession.” A PDF copy of Dr. Berliner’s PowerPoint slides is available. This…
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Messy assessment instead of flogging with the standards
Grant Wiggins’ article “Healthier Testing Made Easy” in the April 2006 issue of Edutopia magazine focuses on one of the most critical issues facing education today and likely in the future: How do we assess learning, and do it in a balanced way so the tail of measurement does not wag the dog of educative…
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MySpace, Conversation, and Songs of the Heart
Bud the Teacher posted a new podcast on the subject of MySpace last week. He stated in the podcast: We are creating networks in our schools that don’t reflect the realities of our students and their lives, their literacies, and what is important to them. Bud commented how many of his students have Xanga and…
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Assignments students cannot fake
The following is a response to Christopher Harris’ post “JumpCut Meta-Remix.” With regard to the remix culture I wrote about yesterday and prevalent student plagiarism he wrote: There isn’t a “fix” for plagiarism. You can attempt to curtail it with policies or tools like TurnItIn. But, I pointed out, what if students know their papers…
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Podcast49: Open the Door – Conversation, Complexity, and Messy Assessment
Educators in all contexts need to open the door to authentic teaching and learning. Conversation, complexity, and messy assessment should be hallmarks of our classrooms and our schools. This presentation was shared as a keynote address at an educational leadership conference held in Fort Worth, Texas, on April 3, 2006. Program Length: 1 hr, 34…
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Messy Learning and Public Education
I love the title of Brian Crosby’s blog: Learning is Messy. It certainly is. Particularly authentic learning. Fake learning, like the kind legislators and administrators congratulate themselves about after test scores are published in newspapers, appears organized, sequential, and predictable. Fake learning is all about trying to control learners or learning. Real learning is likely…
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Clarifying Educational Ends
In the context of a conversation about 1:1 technology learning initiatives and school reform, the author of the Left Lane Ends blog asks: So, where do we begin? …I am in full agreement… on the need for a dramatic changed [sic] in the process that entangles our education system. Yet I also believe that it…
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Collaboratively thinking about school reform
I removed some advertising and virtual vandalism today from David Warlick’s “Hack The System” Wiki page, and also added some additional points under “what we teach,” “how we teach,” and “assessment.” David has extended a global invitation to web 2.0 users to collaboratively reflect and write about the ways schools should change in the 21st…
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Reflections on New Literacies
I am working on finding and creating my own theoretical framework for my dissertation, which is focused on the impact of technology immersion (1 to 1 laptop initiatives) on student achievement. Central to the theoretical framework I am working on is the concept of digital literacy, also referred by others as contemporary literacy, or new…
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Best Practices for Preventing Cheating on On-line Exams
Best Practices for Preventing Cheating on On-line Exams eLearn 2005 presentation by David Eplion and Thomas Keefe, Indiana University Southeast, USA Are some strategies that we can use to address cheating (we will probably never completely eliminate all cheating, however) – we teach traditional face to face courses to mainly undergraduate juniors and seniors –…