Digital Badge # K – Chapter 11

Teachers are well aware that for every lesson plan developed there must be assessment in order to gauge learning.  Assessment is essential, teachers need to know what works and what parts of a lesson plan need to be tweaked and fine-tuned.   According to the section The Role of Assessment in Teaching and Learning, assessment involves three elements.  The first being new teacher assessment, which is how your work and performance is evaluated.  The second is student assessment, which is the evaluation of your students and the evaluation of your effectiveness as a teacher.  And the third being student self-assessment, which is the student’s involvement in the assessment process.  Teachers are evaluated constantly, whether it is self-evaluation or evaluation by supervisors, assessment is necessary in order to make crucial improvements and changes in lesson plans, decisions, delivery and strategies. Assessment is a necessary and valuable tool whenever teaching takes place.

A digital teaching portfolio is a great tool for teachers to have readily available for reference and for demonstrating an organized collection of educational material that the teacher has either developed or collected over time.  The section Digital Teaching Portfolios list common elements found in most teachers portfolios are resume, philosophy of teaching, lesson plans, academic courses, research experience, teaching experience, and resources.  Teachers are evaluated on an on-going basis and what better way to have an organized collection of works available to present to supervisors.  Continuing to add to your portfolio shows your growth, experience, ideas, and reflection over a course of time.  According to this section, a good way to organize your portfolio is to refer to the standards.  As you develop a portfolio and grow, it is necessary to reflect upon past activities in order to identify strengths and weaknesses and improve upon them.  As teachers we constantly must grow and adapt to our environment and develop new and improved ways to deliver knowledge to our students.

Students enjoy being creative and would like technologies such as ZooBurst to show their creativity.

A great way to have students show what technologies they have learned to use is to allow them to create a story book as part of their assessment.

Involving students in Learning and Assessment is a key element to successful learning and outcomes.  This section talks about the importance of teachers and students taking an active role in their learning and teaching.  It is important for students to feel as though they have an influence in their learning environment, this gives them motivation and they take pride in their learning.  Allowing students to have options and make decisions can make lessons that much more successful and have higher and better outcomes.  Teachers and students can actively make decisions and customize lesson plans to suet learning styles, academic learning, and outcomes and still meet the governing standards.

References:

Maloy, R. W., Verock-O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B. P. (2014). Transforming learning with new technologies (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.