Part 1–Assessing Creative Learning
With all of the creative thinking we have done during CEP 811 to incorporate and explore new technologies for the classroom, there remains one final element to consider. The assessment and evaluation of students using these new types of creative technologies for learning.
According to Grant Wiggin’s Blog (2012), educators sometimes say that they shy from assessing creative thought for fear of inhibiting students, but this is a grave error in my view, even if the fear should be honored as coming from a desire to help. I found the ideas about assessing student creativity to be profound. It goes against anything I have ever been told during my teacher training. I fully agree with Wiggin, in that, students should be encouraged to develop creativity and that teachers should allow students to demonstrate their creative minds in all aspects of their learning.
Another interesting point of view about assessing creativity comes from James Paul Gee, who describes video games as a true form of assessment. He says in his video interview, Grading from Games, that playing games is the ultimate assessment–You learn by failure to win. I find this to be a very key idea into thinking about creativity and how to really assess students with technology. I think about creating a circuit with my maker kit and the entire depth of learning that students would need to use to build a circuit. If it does not work, then the students are getting immediately feedback–that they did not do something correctly. Then once they solve the problem–Boom! it works. Success! Then as the teacher I would be able to evaluate and assess the final product based on some key points and also analyze the student thoughts and descriptions about what they did to build such a project. For me, that seems to encompass a lot more learning and evaluation to real life dynamics then reading a story, making a poster and presenting to the class.
One thing is for sure, I am going to read James Paul Gee’s new book, The Anti-Education Era. I ordered a copy, so that I might be able to pick up more ideas and strategies on how to assess and evaluate students through technology and the use of alternative methods to teaching common core strategies. Now that I am not in a classroom everyday and I work with so many students with ASD, I know that new technologies is where I need to be, so that I am well ahead of the curve in incorporating social media and other technologies in student learning where there is a great ability for me to be an effective educator for those students who cannot learn in the typical environments or with typical strategies.
The nation is moving more towards the Project-Based Learning environments and that can only bring more to the blending of all of the ideas we have discovered in CEP 811. The more we can learn about collaborative learning and using more creative ways to incorporate technology into the classroom the better off our students will be and a direct result of being better effective educators for all of our students.
References
Wiggins, G. (2012, February 3). On assessing for creativity: yes you can, and yes you should. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/on-assessing-for-creativity-yes-you-can-and-yes-you-should/
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