Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference
Teaching, Learning, & Technology
Transforming the Learning Environment
April 4-6, 2004
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Dr. Jennifer Grove Track 3 - Supporting the Transformative Environment |
Abstract
The assessment can be a comprehensive approach to gathering information, in order to make a collective decision about growth and development. Those educators challenging the norms of teaching and learning can often be found having the best assessment results and the best of educational experiences. Developing deliberate and purposeful guidelines or changes in the processes involved in appropriate assessing can result from proper investigating, plan development, data collection, and outcome analysis. The steps should involve technology and/or technological resources that will support the teacher-practitionerís efforts to evaluate outcomes and to act on them.
Description
The assessment can be a comprehensive approach to gathering information, in
order to make a broad-based decision about growth and knowledge. The outcome of high
stakes or mandated assessments are often considered to be the driving force behind
changes that are made in the classroom; whether those changes concern the student,
teacher, or curriculum. The suggested types of ìtop-downî or ìoutside-insideî decision
making are often very challenging. As a result of those challenges, many educators are
having less than the best of educational experiences. However, those educators
challenging the norms of teaching and learning can be found and found having the best of
educational experiences.
Perhaps the best of educational experiences can be the result, when educators
respond to the needs of teaching and learning as a professional pursuit, as stated by
Richard Sagor (2000) in Guiding School Improvement with Action Research. The
professional pursuit supports that educators are expected to have the ability to attack non-
routine problems and research apparent needs, by using technology, technological
software, and organized research techniques. The outcome of such purposeful research
can produce educational knowledge about student needs that can move teaching,
learning, and the propaganda involved in addressing student needs to a new and more
significant level.
Addressing student needs are the ultimate reasons for making deliberate and
purposeful guidelines or changes to the procedures involved in 1) investigating student
needs, 2) developing plans of action, 3) collecting the data resulting from the actions
taken, and 4) then analyzing the outcomes to direct appropriate changes. The processes
involved in the four listed steps should involve technology and/or technological
resources. Specifically, data organization and analysis tools can be found to be
advantageous to the teacher-practitionerís efforts to decipher outcomes and to utilize
them.
The outcomes of research can influence decisions and instructional policies, as a
result of ìinside-outsideî research. This professional model of teaching, researching,
assessing and utilizing technology to mesh all the needs of teaching and learning supports
the non- routine, non-hierarchal directed, more complex, and more creative model for the
educational professional (Sagor). When teachers make significant, self-directed changes
in their teaching practices, they can not only enhance their motivation and type of
experiences they have in the classroom, they can help to appropriately meet the needs of
the student population and make the processes involved in assessment better.