d.
Assessing Learning
As
with any form of teaching, when the work is done it is essential
that accurate and valid forms of assessment take place. When you
are using ICT in teaching, several dangers arise that are not
otherwise so obvious. They stem from the easy availability and
ease of manipulation of information and ideas, and it is best
to be clear about them in this case study.
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1. You need to be confident that the information received and
used by pupils has been arrived at 'deliberately' - that is
as a function of their acquisition of reflective or other subject-based
skills rather than by some accident of the World Wide Web. It
is easy to make translation engines do stupid things - the real
question is how well pupils use this phenomenon in their thinking
about communication.
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You need to be confident that the ideas are the pupil's own,
or that new ideas presented to them through the technology have
been assimilated in a way that is appropriate. Here extensive
questioning as pupils go through the process of casting is obviously
important.
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You need to be happy that both you and the pupils appreciate
the differences between presentation and content, and that the
pupil is not merely using the technology to make better-looking
work of the same standard as before. In the exercise in this
case study, it would be easy to make a re-modeling exercise
look good, without necessarily going through a process of modeling
- you need to be careful about this when working with PowerPoint
to do anything.
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The key measure of success is of course in the pupil's understanding
of the Communication Key Skills related elements in the key
objectives of the case study. There is a danger that providing
multiple stimuli to the pupil to get him or her to recognise
features of communication will act as a non-reflective form
of short-circuit to understanding. Here the crucial point is
to establish that understanding has come through appropriate
investigative means.
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Individual and shared progress and achievement - often the technology
will have been used by pairs and groups, as well as by individuals.
Here you need to have a method of ensuring that credit goes
to the right pupil or pair/group for the work done or learning
achieved. With the case study, pupils worked in groups of two
or three, and this needs to be monitored carefully in practice.
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ICT use and opportunities to assess learning. Throughout the
time you are using ICT to develop pupils' learning it is crucial
to keep an eye on where ICT allows you to intervene with an
assessment, or whether the ICT has provided you with an assessment
opportunity that you had not foreseen. The case study gave opportunities
to see how pupils performed when thinking about the nature of
linguistic communication, and careful monitoring can expose
progress with ICT and with Communication Key Skills.
For
discussion with your mentor:
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How may of the points made above have you seen in the course
of your work developing the case study, and are there any others
you expect to come across?
 Part
3: Evaluating the Use of ICT in Teaching and Learning
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