WEEK 5: Alternative Assessment

THOU TEATCHETH THOU SHALT ...
                                                                                                       "Assess alternatively"

Throughout the years, language practitioners have probed into many concepts related to the domain of Testing and Evaluation. These include Summative Assessment, Formative Assessment, Standardized Testing. This weeks reading assignment article develop one such concept of Assessment which is Aternative Assessment. But before making a summary of that article let us give a meaning to the notion of Assessment. Assessment can be understood as the process of making judgment about specific aspects of behaviour, consists of a set of skills by which determines whether or not the learner has mastered the objectives established. (FASTEF training Portefolio 2006)  

The article Assessing Learning, Alternative assessment, exposes the main features or distinctive traits of alternative Assessment. They can be summed up as follow:

Focus on the students’ strengths rather than weaknesses
Authentic tasks for communication goals
Focus on communication, not correctness 
More active role of learners in  assessment criteria determination
Oriented towards learner self-assessment and  peer assessment 
  

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  This approach to assesment has been further explained in the same article in the critereria to Aternative assessment authentic  Activities design section. The following diagram attempts to represent the relationship between Atlterative assessment and those key principles.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

 
Looking at this diagram, it apprears that alternative assessment caters more for the need of a communicative and learner centered orientation of assessement. While assessment responsability solely resided on the teacher side, alternative assessment integrates an inclusive, progressive and communicative dimension to assessment. But, what are the assessment tools of this framework?

The two commonly used tools for alternative assessment are Checklists and Rubrics.

These are really important tools in the hands of both the learners and the teachers. For the groups, the checklist can serve as a guideline against which the steps to complete for a given project, activity or assignement are to be checked. They are are less descriptive and than rubrics. 

Rubrics on the other hand can be used for many purposes. They have been used in language teaching for diagnostic purposes or errors identification. They have come more into fashion with the development of online learning activities such as webquests. These tools are really handy when conducting a Project basedd learning (PBL). One advantage they have is they can enable students to keep tracks of their progress. Second, following the principles of Alternative Assessement, learners can participate in the determination of the evaluation criteria and cast  reflective thoughts about their own progress and learning skills. By designing a rubric, the teacher can control the level of expertise and difficulty required to perform some tasks and evaluate the learners accordingly.

According to the article,  Assessing Learning, Alternative assessment, rubrics can be grouped into four types which are:

1. Holistic rubrics 
2. Analytical rubrics 
3. Primary traits rubrics 
4. Multitraits rubrics

 The chart below attempts to repertoriate the different aspects of those rubrics.

TYPES OF RUBRICS	Purpose	Advantages	Limitations
Holistic rubrics	Holistic assessment of language	mostly suitable for large scale	Not precise when evaluating  separate or discreet learners problem
Analytic rubrics	Analytic assessment of students’ performance	Offers an analysis of different dimensions of the learner’s performance multiple weighting and separate scoring	non holistic approach Requires more preparation
Primary trait rubrics :	Focus on one criterion	Easy and quick to grade writing or speaking	Information  may not easily translated into grades. need constant adaptation of dimensions if to be reused for a different task (cf : Types of rubrics: Primary Trait and Multiple Trait )
Multitrait rubrics:	Enables the multiple traits rating related to tasks	allow separate scoring Scoring related to task features	Too much focus on the task may be to the detriment of the language dimensions May be more time consuming to prepare and analyze

Please help to improve this chart!

WEEK 5: Webquest and Project based learning

The advent of the techonogy and digital era has revolutionarize the way we perceive reading, writing and the way we search for information. In his article overview of Reading, Writing, and Thinking in an age of Electronic Lietaracy,  William Costanzo  draws on the various research to contend a novel perception about reading and writing through the use of technology. Comparing paper based text to computerized text, he comments as follows on the flexibilty that offers digital text format:

"...By contrast, electronic texts have no set boundaries. Represented in the computer circuitry as moveable bits of data, they can always be expanded, condensed, or ressembled in new configurations. Furthermore, it is as easy to jump between two non-consequitive pages as it is to move in sequence. This is the concept behind hypertext."

 (Selfe and Susan Hilligoss, ed, p 12)

Webquest tap into the very ressources of hypertexting or hyperlinking. Webquest allows teachers to target specific ressources from the web and through the use of weblinks assign different tasks to the learners. Even though there is a typical form for a webquest, many practitioners have adopted the idea more than the form. Therefore some online project may use the hyperlink ressources without incorporating other essential parts such as an evaluation grid,. The question is to what extent can such online webquest-like project be called a webquest?  Furthemore, webquests also make use of the collaborative environment that online platforms offer to link online reseach and Project based Learning.

Issues of design can arise also depending of the learners familiarity with the internet. This is very important specially regarding the method of including link. How much depth should there be in relation to the information to be fetched? Should the new pages open in new windows or not?

value and reliability of website

Here is a webquest I designed  for teachers to learn about webquest. The title is Learning about Webquests The target population is a group of 25 teachers. Most of them have little or no webskills. They context is a English Cell meeting.  I had developped materials related to this but teachers did not do the actual research do to inadequacy of the venue. So I rather used the backup plan which was to present the information with a video projector and distribute the worksheets for groupwork and discussion.

NB:  This webquest is a cell meeting presentation I made after attending the ATES (Association of Teachers of English) convention  in Saint Louis, Senegal, Dec, 2012. I was inspired  by Dr Moussa Coulibaly, researcher at UGB (Gaston Berger University), who presented on "Another way of Making Good Use of the Internet". It's  where I  first watched the video ressources which I am using for my webquest.

Some useful websites where to get free ressources for webquest design:

http://zunal.com: It a website where teachers can have access to templates after registering themselves.

 

http://www.webquest.org/

Seeing the Big picture of Webskills Projects Building

This third week in our webskills class was the occasion to skim through the previous projects reports to see what has been achieved in terms of teaching through the webskills. 

The Learners:

The target populations of the projects is various diverse. They range from k12 to post graduate students and in service professionals. Likewise the social and educational backgrounds of the students are diverse.

 Below is a recaputilative table of the students target populations

Age group	Number	AGE in years	SCHOOLING
teen	24	15 – 16	Grade 9 technical school
teen	30	12 -13	unspecified
adults	20	unspecified	master
Teens and Adults	80	17-24	Grade 13
adults	16	19-30	undergraduate
adults	22	unspecified	Graduate and post graduate
adults	35	22-23	Master

Common aspects:

The classroom settings is one common feature. Often, teachers who have worked on the project have relatively acceptable numbers of students in the classes. It is far more acceptable compared to Senegalese settings.

Different aspects:

A major difference between the projects can be related to the type of learners needs. When young learners acquire basic level skills (reading, speaking, writing, listening, adults are seeking assistance are more learning for professional needs, hence; the orientation towards more general or meta skills like reseaching, teaching. 

 Issues raised in the projects:

 The issues raised in learning include:

• improving grammar practice inside and outside the class (Linares, Honduras) 
• building  writing skills (Nikiema, Burkina Faso) 
• building speaking and writing skills(zubel, poland) 
• providing distance online support and capacity building for teachers (Reddy, South Africa) 
• building students confident through task based communicative project (Niccolici, Poland) 
• addressing multiple intelligences  through web based actitives (Pagila, Romania) 
• developing research and accademic writing skills (Phyak, Nepal)

After reading the reports, even though few have attempted to integrate the speaking skills in in terms of pronunciation at K12 in the project, it appears that most projects deal more with production reading or writing. This is to consolidate the view that teaching speaking through the web remains a major challenge. 

Approaches:

Two tools that have been mostly used are  blogging  and webquests. Other options include emailing, google website, nicenet discussion,

Projects cycle:

NB: It's interesting to note that the material design and implementation process phases can be sometimes fuzzy as, some projects approached teaching from the "learning by doing" apporach. This made the the students part of the design and implementation process. The teacher is not the only creator.