Taking Aim: Tips for Evaluating Students in a Digital Age
By Caroline McCullen, SAS inSchool Instructional Technologist

Group assignments, multimedia projects and rapidly changing standards all make it difficult to measure student achievement in today's technology-rich classroom. Here's help figuring it all out.

Teaching in the computer age is like trying to hit a moving target. Most of us pick up those trusty lesson plans, classroom resources, and technologies, carefully aim them at the bright red circle we call the curriculum, and ju-u-u-u-st before we release in the direction of that target, we discover it has moved! The maps we paid hundreds of dollars for last spring are outdated because new countries appear, borders shift, and suddenly the lesson plans seem wrong. Just when we're getting comfortable, the curriculum itself is revised or the standardized tests are updated. And when we begin to feel like we might have all that under control, the NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) appear on the scene.

Then there's the challenge involved in measuring such things as creativity, problem solving and cooperative learning-the sorts of "skills" so many of us hope students will develop with help from technology. It's as if, in addition to being in motion, the target has unclear lines, making it difficult for us to know how close we've come to the mark.

So where do we start? Let's look at a simple approach that may help us take better aim at the evaluation target.

Objectives First
Before focusing on the tools needed to measure student achievement, it's important to have the bigger picture in mind. Begin with the standard curriculum and determine which objectives in your curriculum standards you want to target. (Although not every state has agreed-upon standards, most are at least in the process of developing them; see the Fordham "report card" on state standards at http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/publication/publication.cfm?id=24)

Envision a range of desired outcomes. Every classroom is a unique learning environment with students of a variety of ability levels. What could the most advanced students achieve without any restrictions of time, place, or resources? What could the reluctant learners achieve if they were engaged in the process and truly interested in the tasks? Technology can be a powerful motivator, and students will jump through previously unimagined "hoops" to get their hands on it.

Evaluate possible uses of technology to achieve desired outcomes. Does the use of technology make sense in this instance? Will it help you achieve your goal? Can the students gain information, access or motivation from technology that would surpass traditional resources? If not, better stick to the World Almanac, the Encyclopedia, or the textbook! If technology fits, carefully select the context. How often will you need access, and is this possible in your instructional setting? If you don't have the necessary resources, this is the ideal time to approach your community supporters (PTSA, business partners, and local university) for help. Write up a simple plan and take it with you when you plead your case.

Rubrics and More Rubrics
As soon as you have curriculum goals and technology uses in mind, you can begin to set up classroom procedures for keeping students accountable, plan research strategies, and discuss assessment procedures. Rubrics are an ideal way of assessing a variety of activities and providing a framework for success. One of their strengths is that they offer a way for every student to succeed at some level. Even students working below grade level tend to look at a rubric and say, "I can do this part of it!". Rubrics also provide a way to make subjective activities-group work, research processes, and presentations-into something that can be evaluated objectively.

Rubrics are particularly effective for evaluating projects completed over several days or weeks. If carefully constructed, they keep students accountable for the process, as well as the product. When students feel accountable, their behavior often improves and they take the assignment more seriously. This translates into better outcomes and higher quality final products.

Don't forget to share your rubric or assessment tool with the students before they begin their tasks. Preparing them for the evaluation process amounts to providing a road map to guide them along their way.

If you don't have your own collection of assessment tools, it's easy to locate them on the Web. For example, rubric templates, in the form of Excel Spreadsheets that you may modify to suit your needs for a variety of tasks, are available for free download in the MidLink Magazine's Teacher Resource Room at www.ncsu.edu/midlink/rubric_how-to.htm. Two of them are shown, including a partially completed "generic" template that you can tailor to your own needs.

Designing Your Own
Eventually, of course, you'll find the need to design rubrics tailored to specific projects and goals. Better yet, you might choose to let the students design their own.

The process is simple. First, consider the skills you want to teach and imagine the resulting student products—research papers, multimedia projects, portfolios, and so on. What would the perfect project look like? What features would need to be included? These will be your criteria.

If we start with "perfection" and work backwards, it becomes easier to develop levels or degrees of success. For example, if a social studies class is assigned to research a location and create a multimedia presentation which will persuade class members to move there, then one criteria in your rubric might be "Persuasive Powers." On a scale of 1 - 4, a 4 might indicate that 90 - 100 percent of the class voted to move to Brazil, a score of 3 that 80-90 percent voted to move to Brazil, and so on. Following this procedure with each criterion, you can quickly develop an assessment tool that meets the unique needs of your students. This technique also fosters a classroom where learners work independently at computers using those higher-order thinking skills while the teacher is free to work with individuals.

The entire learning process can be made far easier if teachers begin by thinking about assessment. What do we want students to know? How will we know when they know it? How can we prove to administrators, parents and the general public that the students know it? Using effective evaluation tools and designing our lessons by thinking about the desired outcome can make the job of documenting our successes a great deal easier.

Multimedia Project Rubric
This simple tool provides an example for teachers attempting to define the focus and desired features to be contained in student multimedia projects. Having access to the rubric will guide your students as they develop their final product.

Multimedia Mania Rubric
Jamie McKenzie (editor of the From Now On http://www.fno.org), Terrie Gray (of ED's Oasis http://www.edsoasis.org/), and author Caroline McCullen collaborated with ISTE's HyperSIG board to create this rubric for the Multimedia Mania Contest. The "originality" category addresses the growing problem that McKenzie calls the "new plagiarism"—students copying and pasting information directly from web pages into their word processor, resulting in unprocessed, regurgitated facts requiring no original thought. A well designed rubric can help keep students focused on content and information processing, not just creating attractive presentations.

Excel Spreadsheets:
Multimedia Mania'99 Rubric: http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/ftp/
megaloads/mmania99.zip
Multimedia Project Rubric: http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/ftp/
megaloads/mod2.4.0.ZIP

HTML:
Multimedia Mania'99 Rubric: http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/rub.multi.htm
Multimedia Project Rubric: http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/rub.mmproj.htm

Reprinted from the April 1999 edition of Technology & Learning, a magazine published by the CMP Media, Inc. Reprinted online with permission.