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Assessment Technology >> Choose One From Column B
3/1/2007
On the road to better assessing learning and teaching performance in the higher ed environment, who’s adopting ePortfolios, personal response systems, even simulation-and-assessment technology — and why?
THINK BACK TO THE DAYS when you were a college or university student, furiously scribbling in your notebook as Dr. So-and-so lectured on, and you wondered: Is this going to be on the midterm?
Thankfully (from the student perspective, at least), on most campuses across the country, those days are gone. Today, in the age of real-time and anytime electronic assessment, it’s a safe bet that just about everything will "be on the test"— if the "test" is the ongoing assessment of learning and performance, that is. With technologies such as ePortfolios, in-class student response systems, and simulation/assessment software, schools can now assess their students’ ability to grasp course material from the outset, and instructors can gauge the effectiveness of their course delivery methods before students fall behind. The result: better understanding across the board.
The Power of Portfolios
Next to paper-based tests, ePortfolios have become a highly effective method of assessment in recent years. On the most basic level, this technology relies on a website to which students can upload anything they feel represents their knowledge on a subject—papers, pictures, essays, and more. More sophisticated ePortfolio approaches are integrated into a campus assessment system that allows the collection of scores and the creation of reports.
Such is the case at Oral Roberts University (OK), where technologists have aligned the assessment of 16 proficiencies in five student learning outcomes within the curriculum. ORU chose ePortfolio technology from Chalk & Wire to handle this process. Today, according to Cal Easterling, director of institutional research and planning, the system enables faculty members to use rubrics to measure how well students are doing, and how that success correlates to other university competencies such as technological knowhow, spirituality, and reading comprehension. "For the first time, [both students and instructors] are speaking the same language," he says. Easterling notes that the five outcomes the university has identified are: spiritually alive, intellectually alert, physically disciplined, socially adept, and professionally competent. He adds, "Students are now aware of what these outcomes are, and they understand how their performance in individual classes ultimately relates to each one."
According to Easterling, competencies were hammered out by faculty over a two-year period. Faculty members worked with students to determine which types of documents/artifacts would demonstrate proficiencies, focusing on artifacts that educators were already using, so that students wouldn’t feel like they were doing extra work.
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