Module+5

=﻿Module Five: Assessment and Evaluation / Productivity and Professional Practice= ====﻿**//Reflection Prompt://** How has technology impacted or changed your classroom assessment and evaluation? Has your data collection methodology changed with technology? If technology has not impacted your assessment and evaluation, what would you like to change? Discuss technology and your own productivity and professional practice.====

====**Description:** For this module we were assigned to read chapter four about assessment and evaluation and chapter five about productivity and professional practice in our Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards textbook along with two articles regarding classroom assessments. While reading, we were supposed to be analyzing our own assessment, evaluation and professional classroom practices to help us develop our own philosophy of instructional technology use for teaching and learning in the 21st century.====

====**Impact:** While reflecting on how technology is used in my classroom I have realized how much technology has truly impacted the way I assess and evaluate my students. A variety of technology resources are being used in my classroom to help me collect and analyze data, interpret results, and then use those results to help guide my lessons.==== ====For starters, I created a Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet which is broken down into separate columns for each fifth grade math standard that my students are expected to master by the end of this year. I break my students’ assessment grades down by the Ohio Academic Content Standards and document which standards they have mastered and which ones they are still struggling with. This is very helpful for me to identify my students’ individual strengths and weaknesses along with whole group strengths and weaknesses. This has helped me guide my lessons and prepare interventions.==== ====I also use a math program called IXL which tests my students’ math abilities and documents their progress for me automatically. The program provides detailed performance reports that give me valuable insight on my students’ ability levels. This program helps me identify the specific standards that are challenging my students. The data I receive from IXL helps me group my students according to which areas they need extra help with.==== ====I have also recently been able to implement SMART Response Clickers into my classroom which helps me assess my students in a matter of seconds. The SMART Response system automatically summaries my students’ answers into pie charts or bar graphs so I can evaluate their understanding of the given material. My students also love to see what category they fall into and how many students agreed with their answer. Although I have not been using the response clickers for very long, they have greatly impacted the way I teach. The immediate feedback this program provides for me guides my lessons! If several of my students are not understanding a concept I can review the material and quiz them again until I feel confident we can move on.==== ====These technology resources help me to quickly assess my students and organize their results so I can reflect on the data and decide if I need to improve my instructional practices. Technology has helped me take closer looks at my students’ individual progress and quickly identify who is excelling and who is struggling. I have also realized how much time the IXL program and the SMART response clickers have saved me from grading papers. Now I can focus my time on intervening and planning on how to best help my students instead of spending days and hours trying to figure out who need intervention and who need enrichment activities. Technology has allowed me to focus more on my students and less time on grading which, in turn has allowed me to become a more effective teacher. Technology provides all my students with immediate feedback on their own answers and I can help them identify their mistakes and correct their misunderstandings.==== ====In reading chapter five, I really realized the impact that educators have on their students when they use various types of technology to enhance their own productivity and professional practice! My school district uses Microsoft Outlook Web as our e-mail system which is being used as much more than just an e-mail system. Each school has a building folder and each teacher has a grade level folder which we use rather regularly to share lesson ideas, new practices, educational websites, etc. In my 5th grade folder, our team of 5th grade teacher have been sharing Language Arts rubrics through Google Docs and I have been sharing SMART Notebook lessons that I have created for math and science. It is great to have a common area to share ideas without having to meet face to face. This folder on Outlook Web has allowed us to communicate wonderful educational practices via the web.====

====**Intent:** I have realized how much time technology has saved me in grading papers and how much more time it allows for me to reflect on my students’ skills and develop ways to help them succeed. I intent to research more ways to integrate technology assessments into my classroom. I am still looking into giving my students their unit tests using the SMART response clickers. I also need to continue to enhance my own productivity and professional practices through technology because I realize how much it indirectly benefits my students. Our grad-class discussions on springboard has already provided me with many resources and ideas and I intent for it to continue to help me!====