Assessment and evaluation of the students’ achievements in relation to learning definite materials and developing certain skills are necessary to demonstrate the changes in the students’ progress to influence their academic performance and motivation to achieve the higher results and to provide instructors with the information about the appropriateness and completion of the set goals and objectives (Reiser & Dempsey, 2012, p. 25; United States Government Accountability Office, 2005).
That is why such approaches as the use of technologies for assessing and evaluating the students’ results can be discussed as advantageous to facilitate and optimize the process in order to provide the most accurate results of the students’ progress.
Thus, it is necessary to state in relation to using technologies in the teaching-learning process that “possible tools continue to explode. Paired with effective instructional practices, these tools promise engagement and increased learning” (Bedard-Voorhees, Johnson, & Dobson, 2011, p. 15).
From this perspective, technologies are used to improve the assessment and evaluation procedures, and to illustrate the technologies’ effectiveness, it is necessary to redesign the assignment connected with developing the classroom assessment worked out earlier for EDU 618.
According to the Program Learning Outcome 6 and Program Learning Outcome 7, technologies should be used to “facilitate effective assessment and evaluation” and to “collect and analyze data, interpret results, and communicate findings”.
These important goals should be reflected in the assessment activities developed for EDU 618 after redesigning these activities according to the principles of Cognitivism/Pragmatism Instructional Design (Dabbagh, 2006).
To complete the above-mentioned goals, it is important to add more interactive exercises to the proposed formative assessment activities based on different types of test, including online tests.
For instance, to encourage the students to participate in the assessment activities with interest, it is necessary to use the interactive exercises which are available through the iPad apps.
In spite of the fact that such assessment and evaluation resources cannot be used as the traditional assessment tool, they can be used regularly to improve students’ motivation, interest, commitment, and academic performance.
The principles of Cognitivism/Pragmatism Instructional Design are determined as basic ones to redesign the assessment activities because this instructional design provides the emphasis “on structuring, organizing and sequencing information to facilitate optimal processing” (Dabbagh, 2006).
As a result, the use of technologies to assess the achievements with the help of asking for structuring and synthesizing the materials or distinguishing the main points is correlated with the students’ developed ability to organize the information in memory and analyze it to receive the answer to questions during the assessment activities.
Online tests and interactive exercises provide a range of opportunities to optimize this process and receive the immediate feedback.
However, there are also some challenges which can be experienced during the redesign process. The main challenge is the absence of many developed apps to be used in iPads and to address a variety of the goals typical for the assessment during the teaching-learning process.
It is rather difficult to choose the most appropriate variant of the effective interactive exercises and tests to respond to the lesson’s objectives.
Nevertheless, there are many guides to operate the apps effectively in relation to the instructor’s needs, and the major challenges can be overcome with references to the fact.
Thus, technologies are effective tools to facilitate not only assessment and evaluation in the classroom environment but also instructional activities important to contribute to the students’ performance.
References
Bedard-Voorhees, A., Johnson, L. M., & Dobson, P. (2011). Letting them show what they know: Digital assessment strategies. In S. Hirtz and K. Kelly (Eds.) Education for a Digital World 2.0, Section F: eAssessment: Measuring in Ways that Matter. British Columbia: Province of British Columbia.
Dabbagh, N. (2006). Instructional design knowledge base. Web.
Reiser, R., & Dempsey, J. (2012). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology. USA: Allyn & Bacon.
United States Government Accountability Office. (2005). Performance measurement and evaluation: Definitions and relationships. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Web.