Journal #5

Journal #5 – How Do We Know It’s Working?  Designing an Authentic Assessment Plan

Sun, J. (1991). How Do we know it's working? designing an authentic assessment plan. ISTE, 19. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/LL/LLIssues/19911/September15/How_Do_We_Know_Its_Working_Designing_an_Authentic_Assessment_Plan.htm

The journal article, “How Do We Know it’s Working?  Designing an authentic assessment plan”, was published in September of 1991.  That is almost two decades ago.   Within the ever-changing field of technology I thought it would be interesting to find the earliest article in ISTE concerning itself with technology and education.  Hindsight is 20/20, so I am able to discuss this article with the advantage of being a “Monday morning quarterback”. The article discussed how data was collected and concluded that technology does “affect student achievement positively.”

            In 1991, according to the article, parents, teachers, and schools were concerned that too much money was being spent on technology in schools.  Many had the pessimistic view that “information technology (IT) will simply become another educational fad”.  At the time, I could see how many would feel this way.  Today, however, it’s easy to see how IT has had a profound impact on the classroom and in many respects has revolutionized the classroom and student achievement.

         The article goes on to discuss the ways in which information was gathered (i.e. the methodology used to collect and interpret data) to conclude that education does improve student achievement.  This being said, it was difficult to gather the data because education does not occur in a vacuum and there are many other things at play.  For many of the teachers who felt that IT did help their students mainly had anecdotal evidence.  I would be interested in reading an article from 2010 that concerns itself with technology improving student achievement and how we know it’s working. 

How would your teaching experience be different if the year was 1991?

For one, I wouldn’t even be taking this class if it were the same year the article was written.  I wouldn’t know what a blog is, I don’t think I had heard the word, internet in 1991.  We had computers but they were mainly used for word processing.  Research was done in the library.

 What would you do if your students outmatched your IT skills?

I’m not sure if that would be a bad thing.  My IT skills will be sufficient to teach a class but there is a possibility that students will know more about technologies.  If this were the case, then I would use that opportunity to learn from my students.