Room With A View

A couple of weekends ago I found myself on the Assessment Committee at ISB’s Middle School Planning Summit. Assessment is on my mind a lot these days. I have Robert Marzano’s recent book Classroom Assessment and Grading that Work on the table in front of me. I’ve read a couple of chapters so far. It’s very good.

Assessment in the area of technology is especially challenging. For example, games and simulations are a very effective ways to learn but how can we assess them? Traditionally, students move through content linearly. Formal and informal assessment is administered as students progress through a unit and a final assessment is given at the end of a unit. The challenge with games and simulations is that students do not move through material linearly. Instead they weave their way through material and may or may not end up in the same place with the same knowledge and understandings at the end. How then should this be assessed? If students don’t end up in the same place at the end, do games and simulations have a place in K-12 education? How does one teach with games or simulations when one is held accountable through standardized tests or IB exams?

The Horizon report recognizes these challenges when it states that:

Assessment of new forms of work continues to present a challenge to educators and peer reviewers. Both at the student and at the professional level, assessment is lagging behind creative work. Learning that takes place in interdisciplinary, context-rich environments such as games and simulations is still difficult to evaluate. Capturing a portfolio of work, when much of that work takes place in new media forms like blogs, podcasts, and videos, poses a problem for learners and for professors seeking tenure.

Hmmm, no answers here, just a recognition of the challenges.