Assessment: Teacher-centered or Learner-centered?

I think there were two statements that should not be examined separately. The first is the following: Assessment is used to monitor learning. The second is the following: Assessment is used to promote and diagnose learning.

A definition of the verb monitor is the following: To keep track of systematically with a view to collecting information (http://education.yahoo.com). It is essential to quality instruction that you monitor student progress, especially if you are teaching something like reading that is a continuum. The assessment should consist of all aspects of the area. Therefore, someone dates and records the complexity of the material the student read, at what rate they read it, with how many errors, what strategies the student used when they didn’t automatically know the word, and their understanding of the piece. This assessment information is used to diagnose the student’s strengths and weaknesses. This is monitoring a student’s progress to promote and diagnose learning. The statements identified earlier are not separate entities, they are parts of a whole.

Module 2: Emerging Practices in Online Assessment

In the article, Benefits of Cooperative Learning in Weblog Networks, Wang and Fang (2005) were looking for an “effective, alternative avenue for fostering class discussion to course instruction in which technology is used along with the implementation of cooperative learning…” This supposes that class discussion and cooperative learning are skills the students already posses. A lot depends on the individual students, the skills they bring to the class, and their comfort level with the rest of the class and the instructor, but these skills may need to be taught. http://www.co-operation.org/pages/cl.html Therefore, class discussion and cooperative learning may be a bonus in the form of additional skills learned by the students.

Wang and Fang (2005) also said blog use promotes cooperative learning in an asynchronous environment. Assuming blogs extend the amount of time students spend working within the cooperative group because of the asynchronous aspect of the blog environment supports this theory.

I am coming to the conclusion that blogs, used in the method described by Wang and Fang (2005), can be used as discussion areas when a formal discussion board is not available, or used for small group discussion areas, like when the group is putting together a project.

I am wondering if one of the problems for the instructor might be that the blogs gain an unwieldy size? Also, knowing the instructor is going to review the blogs might inhibit some students’ participation. That inhibition might be a mixed blessing.

After participating in the discussions this week, I would like to add the following comments:
• Many people in the class have used blogs with their students and have found it to be a valuable asset.
• Other professionals have used blogs with students as young as 5th grade.
• Google Groups has been recommended as a discussion formatted, free area available for use with students.
• Most people in the group feel their students are motivated by the technological components, blogging, Google Groups, wikis, and that component adds to the desirability of working on it, thereby driving the students to spend leisure time working on their school assignments.

Holly J