Social Networks and Assessment

On Wednesday evening, Darren Kuropatwa, Kathy Cassidy and I had the pleasure of virtually presenting in Dean Shareski's class at the University of Regina. This session was beamed out to Ustream as well and the discussion in the chatroom was described to me as "electric." While I was concentrating on the chat in Elluminate, the Ustream chat was focused on ideas of assessment and David Jakes has written a great post about the value of a single word:

"in a Web 2.0 world that included Wikipedia, you could and would publish a single word, and most importantly, it could be a significant contribution."

He then goes on to challenge us about ideas of assessment in a networked classroom:

"How do you assess contribution in a networked classroom?

Ok, so what does it look like? What’s new, what’s different, what’s the same? Your ideas?"

My first comment on this thought is that I really like David's choice of wording in this post. He asks, how do you assess "contribution?" The focus being placed not on the knowledge that is in each student's head as an individual container that has nothing to do with those around it. "Contribution" in my mind means to our global knowledge base as a classroom, as a community, as a network. That contribution needs to be assessed in relationship to others and their information, context, and contribution.

But what does this mean? What does it look like?

In a networked classroom, assessment needs to take several forms and several things need to be considered. The first is product. The fact is that as teachers, we are responsible for the final products that our students produce. We have been mandated to teach and assess outcomes and products. To these things we are accountable. As teachers, many of us are comfortable with products. But in a networked classroom, we must also consider process. Process may be in the form of skills ( how did you collect your information? What sources did you use? How did you alter your network to complete this project? What did you need to add or take away from your PLN?) But process can also be concerned with the form of the information or the idea itself. (How did you assess the validity of your information? What pieces of your idea did you get from other people? What have you added to, or taken away from this original idea? What is your contribution to the total sum of the classroom / network / community / global knowledge base on this topic?) In my classroom, this process often takes place in the form of small group or individual conferences. They may be on an ongoing basis during a project when there is some skill or piece that I want to emphasize. It may also come at the end of unit of study as a form of summative assessment. Often, I'll ask the students to reflect first in writing or using a checklist, or I will give them a set of questions to reflect on that I want to meet with them about. I believe that assessment methods should never be a secret, all the kids should have all the rules up front. How can they hit a moving target without knowing what they are expected to do?

As David also mentions in his post, I too am challenged by rubrics. I know they are currently de rigeur for classroom assessment and I do use them, but I wonder about the individuality and the humanity which they knock out of the process. I believe that in a networked classroom, assessment needs to be ongoing and take multiple forms (as we've been hearing for years), but needs to be concerned with different things than in the past. We also need to think about the network's contribution to the final products that are set before us. We need to think about the validity of information sources and challenge our students to make their thinking visible and sound. We also need to acknowledge the fact that at least part of the idea "proudly found elsewhere" is realistic and OK.

I think David has brought up a good point in this post. While we've talked a great deal about teaching and about technology tools, assessment has been a missing part of much of the work we have accomplished.

Tags: DavidJakes, Strength of Weak Ties, Darren Kuropatwa, Kathy Cassidy, assessment, classroom, Dean Shareski

Comments

[Carl Anderson]

I am going to post this comment also on David Jake's blog (http://strengthofweakties.org) and my own (http://carlanderson.blogsot.com) since this conversation seems to be taking place in multiple places and connectivity is essential to readers outside the network:

I agree that rubrics should not be the end all be all of assessment in a classroom. However, like Clarence said, "How can they hit a moving target without knowing what they are expected to do?" I believe the inclusion of rubrics or checklists for assessment are necessary for dealing with what could arguably be a damaging necessity in our classroom: grades. Most of us are mandated to give our students some kind of mark at the completion of a learning activity or unit. I don't believe grades are always healthy for learning as they are by nature extrinsic forces and only really work when the student doesn't find any intrinsic value in the learning activity. Grades can do more harm than good, especially when dealing with something as engaging and intrinsically rewarding as a PLN because they diminish the intrinsic motivation by replacing it with an extrinsic reward or consequence. However, if we are mandated to use these extrinsic devices we have to make it fair. There has to be some way to clearly lay out for students how they can achieve a certain grade. The nice thing about rubrics is they can also work as teaching tools, not just assessment tools, because they can be instructive. They can also be written in such away that they lessen the extrinsic consequence factor by laying out exactly what needs to be accomplished leaving room for the intrinsic motivators to take over where the rubric leaves off.

But, assessment should be about more than just grades. Assessment should be about giving useful feedback that the student can take with them and either reinforce good behaviors or products or redirect misinterpretations or misunderstandings. Assessment should show students what they need to do to take their work to the next level. Whenever I have my online students participate in any learning activity I always give them a rubric and make it known that this is the measuring tool that I will use to give them their grade and ask students to do a self assessment using the rubric when they hand in their work. When I assess the work I additionally give feedback beyond the rubric that is individualized. This feedback I would argue is the valuable part of assessment for true learning learning. In a networked learning environment this can be brought to peer assessment or even opened to public assessment. The student's peers and any member of the the public who would contribute to the work's assessment is unlikely to use a rubric. Instead their assessment will come in the form of comments. Comments that are meaningful because they are from real people and represent real opinions and not sterile placement on a rubric. But, the rubric still determines the grade.