Developing Assessments For Tomorrow’s Classrooms

Abstract

This paper begins with a discussion of technology-supported activities to support meaningful learning and planning for a new research agenda. The remainder of the paper is a description of two prototype technology-based assessments developed to help address the dearth of appropriate student learning measures available to inquiry-oriented, technology-supported projects. The first prototype assessment task, designed for middle and secondary school students, presents an engaging, problem-based learning task that integrates technology use with investigation of an authentic problem, i.e., that a group of foreign exchange students wants to come to the United States for the summer and needs to choose one of two cities to visit. The second prototype, tested with a fourth/fifth-grade class, is a palm-top collaboration assessment. Approach, pilot testing, results, and next steps are described for each prototype. Excerpts from the Internet Research Task Scoring Rubric, a list of dimensions of collaboration, and a description of scoring classroom interactions with the collaboration rubric are attached. Author biographies are included.