d.
Assessing Learning
As
with any form of teaching, when the work is done it is essential
that valid and accurate forms of assessment take place. When you
are using ICT in teaching, several dangers arise that are not
so obvious. These stem from the easy availability and the ease
of manipulation of information and ideas, and it is best to be
clear about them in the first case study.
- You
need to be confident that the information received and used
by students has been arrived at "deliberately" - that is as
a function of their acquisition of numeracy skills rather than
by fortuitous approximation or guesswork.
- You
need to be satisfied that both you and the student's appreciate
the differences between presentation and content, and that you
are not merely using technology to make better-looking work
of the same standard as before.
- The
key measure of success is of course the student's understanding
of the numeracy elements in the key objectives of the case study.
There is a danger that providing multiple sensory stimuli to
get him or her to become familiar with the necessary skills
to interpret the data, will act as non-numeracy forms of short-circuit
to understanding. Here it is crucial to establish that numerical
understanding has come through numerical means.
- 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 student of the pair/group for the work done or
learning achieved.
- ICT
use and opportunities to assess learning. Throughout the time
you are using ICT to develop student's learning it is crucial
to keep an eye on the opportunities presented by ICT to allow
you to intervene with an assessment, or whether the ICT has
provided you with an assessment opportunity that you had not
foreseen. Observing the student making intelligent decisions
about the worth of a spreadsheet is an example of this.
For discussion with your mentor:
-
How many 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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