EDUC+5364+Week+4+Reflection

This week has once again matched grad studies with the reality of the classroom. As we prepare for final exams at school I am dealing with the issue of what is authentic assessment. As an English teacher we often get in discussions regarding how to assess reading for someone with learning issues. Is reading just decoding the words, or is it the comprehension of the story and the concepts within? I believe it is both. You have to be able to do both to be a reader. But how then do we authentically assess someone with reading issues. I have a student that must be provided oral exams. Do we read her the story and the questions and answer choices? Or, do we let her read the story and we read the questions and answer choices? It was decided that we would do the latter format. Whether or not this provides authentic assessment, it is the reality of the school system at this point. I believe that with the advent of new technologies that maybe schools will get better at assessing, but since we all learn in different ways, to be truly authentic we would need to assess in a huge variety of methods. “Whether we consider individual differences in recognition, strategic, and affective networks, we realize that a common test format and administration method will always favor some students and hurt others, for a variety of complex reasons” (Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). //Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning//. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Chapter 7. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology Web site. Retrieved October 5, 2009, from []).

I had a conversation with my husband about the frustrations about technology in the school. As I read our two textbooks and all the great ideas I am struck by what Tim call the disconnect of education. He said, “There is a massive disconnect in education. We want to believe we are technologically advanced, but we are not. More important, we don’t want to be. We want to be “technologically advanced just enough that we can say to all our benefactors, “See, we have this wonderful big lab with 30 computers.” But we are terrified to death of using them.” So we leave them isolated in a special inner sanctum with special lighting and special cooling and hope that no teacher ever has the guts to go in there.”(T. Kroeker) I don’t know if I completely agree, but I see in some of the teachers I work with a desire for technology to go away. One teacher got to go to a week long training, where she received a smart board, projector, and a bunch of other technologies, and yet she doesn’t want the students to use them, because “they aren’t responsible”. Another won’t take them to the lab, as “they will just fool around”, and a third who says she doesn’t want to learn anything related to technology. And yet, I would love to have all the equipment I could get, and believe that you teach the students to be responsible and hold them to a high standard, and most students will rise to the challenge.

I have been really blessed by the team of professional educators that I have been working with on the group project. Everyone has been working hard to make sure that we meet the expectations of the group and the course.