Week One

This is my first reflective blog post for Assessment in E-Learning, a professional development graduate course offered by the University of Wisconsin-Stout. This first module challenged us with the question: what is authentic assessment? I welcomed this discussion for several reasons. First, I see the need to make assessment a part of the learning process and not just something imposed at the end; it truly is an integral part of how we learn. What’s more, students catch on fast if an assessment has little or no value to them as learners, and if we can design more authentic assessments, the assignments developed out of those assessments will also be more meaningful and constructive for the students.

There was much discussion on the idea of Assessment OF learning versus assessment FOR learning. This was a core principle in one of our readings by Michael Buhagiar, “Classroom assessment within the alternative assessment paradigm: revisiting the territory.” Buhagiar categorized assessment into 6 areas: diagnosis, screening, certification, feedback, recording-keeping and selection.  He also broke down each category into formal and informal assessment. While I agreed and indeed practice feedback as an essential tool for learning (for myself and the students) I found the broader discussion of summative ( or snapshot) assessment to be the most interesting to think about. These kinds of assessments are for the most part  formal and high-stakes, and therefore really matter to our students. Who cares how you are learning if it doesn’t get you to where you need to be with a degree in hand? There is still a need for these kinds of assessments, but how do we create one that is both authentic and subjective, and also be a tool for learning?

We practiced working with our class wiki as a tool for assessment, an interesting experience and one that I want to try working more with in the classroom. We created netiquette guidelines for our online discussions. As an assessment tool, I see it as feedback for both teacher and student, as anyone can edit the wiki and make changes to incorrect information.

We also participated in interviews and posted them in the discussions. The biggest problem for me was finding a partner as there are only seven students in the class and I ended up being the odd one out! However, as always, there is a kind soul who is willing to do more work in order to accommodate others, and I was able to complete the interview.  Marie Cristobal and I emailed back and forth over the day:

Marie was kind enough to let me interview her at the last minute, which I much appreciate!

Tina has already done a wonderful job of introducing Marie, but I hope to add a little more. I asked her about her time in Europe, more specifically about where she lived and what she missed the most about living there. Marie lived outside of Madrid in a town called Alcala de Henares, where her second husband is from. Her favorite spot in Spain is the southern coast, a place called Andalucia. From there it is easy to make side trips to Tangiers, Morocco or Gibraltar. To the second part of my question Marie replied: “The thing I miss most …is the quality of life.  People take time to know each other.  The quality of the relationships seem deeper and more important.  You take time to enjoy life and don’t live just to work!”

Sounds wonderful to me. I also borrowed a question she had asked Tina: what would you do with an extra hour in the day. She replied that she would do more volunteer work in the local community.

Here is Marie’s interview of me:

I had the great opportunity to interview Liz today.  She had already posted a “self-interview” which you can read in the discussions.  I decided to ask her two different questions as she already had shared some information.  In just a few emails, I feel very connected to her already!

I asked Liz, “if you had to paint the world in two colors, what would they be and why?  She told me that she would like to paint the world green and pink.  She loves the forest and spends a lot of time hiking and exploring our local forests.  She owns 16 acres of forest land.  She also likes pink because it complements green! And because there are so many pretty hues: it can be a very delicate color, like in a flower petal, but can also be very dramatic as in a sunset. 
I also asked her, “if you could meet and spend time with one person, living or dead, who would they be? Why?.  She gracefully replied that she would like to spend time with Gandhi. She is fascinated about how he, just one person, created a whole movement of change by advocating for non-violence.  I realized that Liz and I share several things in common to include the love of nature and the respect of a truly fascinating person, Ghandhi.

Let us give Liz a warm welcome to this class.

Thank you, Marie, for the kind words and I hope to enjoy many more discussions online!