AOL File Library: 4,401 to 4,500/aol-file-protocol-4400-4401-to-4500.zip/AOLDLs/Tips and Teacher's Guide/Document Your Success Online/documenting success on SN

Text File | 2014-12-08 | 4KB | 81 lines

DOCUMENTING SUCCESS

You know your students benefit from their experiences with
Scholastic Network--but sometimes those benefits are
difficult to demonstrate, especially if your school or
district relies heavily on standardized tests.  Tests that
measure rote knowledge can't begin to  assess the critical
thinking and inquiry-based analysis your students do
online.

The fact is, it's not always easy to help parents,
administrators, and school board members understand that
telecommunications activities are academically justified.
That's why alternative assessment techniques are so
important.

START ONLINE Start your investigation of alternative
assessment by visiting one of the conferences on assessment
in Scholastic Network.  there you'll find insights from
teachers who are already experimenting with new assessment
techniques, answers to your questions, and help from some
of the best-known experts in the assessment field.  They
can provide you with needed support as you try some of the
other tips described here.

DEFINE YOUR OBJECTIVES Before you begin an online project,
spend some time outlining specific objectives.  Do you want
students to learn something specific about a certain region
of the country?  Are you hoping for improved attitudes
toward reading and writing?  Do you think students will
gain a better understanding of some scientific concept?  In
defining objectives and setting goals for the project,
remember to keep it simple.  Divide the project into short
segments so you can reflect, evaluate, and redesign along
the way.

COLLECTIONS OF EVIDENCE Every piece of writing your
students create during Network projects, every message they
send, every draft and revision traces the path of their
online experience.  At the end of a project, these
documents provide a kind of "fossil record," making it easy
for you to chart learning and progress.  Encourage students
to save their work in folders or portfolios, or on disk, in
electronic portfolios.  Here is a list of just some of the
items you'll want students to collect:

E-mail messages postings to public message areas; responses
to other classes' queries; stories written online; results
of research projects; date from surveys, etc.

LOG BOOKS Purchase an inexpensive notebook or binder and
use it to record your own reflections on students projects
done online.  Or, use a calendar marked in different colors
to note class meetings, online time, uploads and downloads,
presentations for other classes in your school, and time
you spent online at home.  You'll find that this written
record will serve you well when planning your next project,
orienting a fellow teacher, or justifying your use of
telecommunications in the classroom.

PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS Performance tests provide accurate
information about what students know and can do by
requiring them to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.
Here are just a few of the performance tasks you might want
to consider.

Have students: demonstrate how to navigate the online
encyclopedia; show you how to send and receive E-mail;
compose a message to another class; access an online
database; share research findings with another class; read
and respond to another students' project idea online;
correspond with an author or expert online.

FOLLOW-UP WRITING Every online project can easily lead to
an off-line writing assignment.  While interest is still
high, encourage students to write down their impressions of
a project, noting specific facts they learned and concepts
they explored.  Be sure to store these follow-up writings
in students' portfolios.

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