Is Technology Hurting or Helping Your Students Learn?
When creating my rubric I had the idea in mind to keep it simple so that it could be used with any technological tool. I also wanted to make it specific and measurable which is why I included the percentages in each box. These processes can be checked formally and informally in many ways by the evaluator and or students using the tool.
Ensuring the framework follow the four C's, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication is key to a successful curriculum evaluation. A curriculum that does a proper job in critical thinking skills will encourage students to determine if information is factual or not. This can be done by spending time online or asking "why" in every day life (Stauffer, 2021). Often times when one thinks about being creative they think about art projects, drawing, and other visual projects. Believe it or not students can learn to be creative when they have the proper resources. This can be done by solving problems, creating systems, or trying something new (Stauffer, 2021). Collaboration is so important as students need this as a life skill to be successful in their school work, college, jobs, and any relationship they have personal and professional. Practicing informal and formal conversations is one of the best ways to teach and learn collaboration. We live in a word where a lot of our communication is done via text message, email, social media, etc. This takes away the tone of voice, and visual of body language needed for successful conversations. Encouraging students to communicate in various in person ways is another important life skill needed to be successful.
There are many reasons to evaluate a curriculum, the top five reasons are "to determine the outcomes of a program, to help in deciding whether to accept or reject a program, to ascertain the need foe the revision of the course content, to help in future development of the curriculum material for continuous improvement, and to improve methods of teaching and instructional techniques" (Study Lecture Notes).
Benefits to curriculum evaluation are helping one identify the objectives they want students to master. It allows for one to make sure they are teaching skills that relate to the evolving world we live in. By evaluating a curriculum it shows you what students are learning and if they are getting the most out of the learning, or if there are holes in a curriculum. It is also a great way to assess a program before adopting it and being stuck with something that hurts students more than it helps them learn.
Two challenges of curriculum evaluation that often go hand in hand are poor planning and lack of readiness. The evaluation process is very important, and can be time consuming and challenging. Having a rubric is a good tool and must be discussed as a team of evaluators to decide what to look for, not just sharing opinions on a curriculum. Another challenge is bad data or too much data. It is important to remember quality over quantity when taking data collection. Asking on topic and clear questions is important, bad questions lead to bad data. Making sure data is input in a system in a specific order is also important and should be discussed as a team how it will be organized.
References: Annette. (n.d.). 6 evaluation challenges. Research Evaluation Consulting.
Curriculum evaluation meaning, importance & objective. Study Lecture Notes. (n.d.).
Stauffer, B. (n.d.). What are the 4 C's of 21st century skills? CTE Curriculum for Middle and High School Teachers.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed looking at your curriculum that you set up to use to evaluate technology. You chose a slightly different approach than I did by evaluating the technology by the outcomes you were able to observe from your students. You also used a range of point possible which I will add into my own rubric. I think it is very detailed to set goals for your tools using technology. When you were talking about piloting a curriculum it really hit home that often we adopt a curriculum and it does not fit the needs of our students. Many districts are like mine and only adopt curriculum for each subject on a cycle of every five to seven years. Technology should be looked at just like any other curriculum, as an investment in our students. I know I personally use many sites and supplemental resources that are technology based. Many of these are free for teachers. I also know that curriculums my school has purchased often have an online component. However, I have purchased items that recommend videos or lessons from tools that I do not have access to. One great example if Generation Genius for science. They have so many resources for students to use and that could easily be implemented using technology. However, the cost of the program could deter teachers from using this tool. With the push for technology in classrooms and the research to support it as well, schools should be able to invest in resources for their teachers. If we use a rubric to pilot the technology and use a rubric and have strong data to prove improved student outcomes, we can present this to our administrators and board the why and how technology would improve our students' educational journey. I agree that you have to be extremely diligent in collecting data to ensure that it is as valid as possible.
Torrie
Hello Katie, thank you for sharing! I love that you included a picture of your rubric. This allowed me to better understand each element of the rubric and helps me to clarify how you differentiate between each ranking. I also like that you included a range of point scores within your rubric. This provides teachers with wiggle room in each category for natural reflection. I like that you also focused on how much data to collect when considering a new type of technology. There is definitely such a thing as collecting too little or too much data, which can skew your results. Being clear with your expectations and questions will allow you to narrow down your search for appropriate technology to integrate into your classroom. It will also allow you to identify which current forms of technology are not working or could be improved in the future for your students. You also mentioned readiness being a key factor in implementing new curriculum or technology. My school adopted a new reading curriculum this year and we simply did not have enough time to fully understand all of the resources it came with nor how to build off of the curriculum to better incorporate technology into each lesson. Because of this, we are not able to effectively evaluate the tools we are using. How do you think we can better prepare ourselves when we establish new curriculums, along with outreaching to find appropriate technologies that can be added to the lessons?
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