Near the end of his senior year in high school, the young man met with his principal and one of his teachers.  He felt that the “B” he had received on his report card was unfair.  The class was Journalism and he had done more than anyone in class.  He had completed his part of the Sports section for his yearbook, finished two other parts for other students and took over for the yearbook photographer who dropped the class.  The students whose sections he had completed received “A’s” in the class, but he received a “B”.  When the teacher defended her actions, she told the principal that she expected more out of him than the other students.

That day nearly cost me my chance to go to college.  Since then I have been very careful to ensure that my expectations are clear to my students.  Rubrics are a necessity.   I want to challenge all students, but as any teacher knows, some students will find your assignments more difficult than others.

Technology-based assignments are adding a whole new dimension into establishing rubrics and expectations of students.  Recently, I gave an online research project to my AP Statistics classes.  The criteria for the research and reporting was clearly defined in a rubric, but I left open the method of displaying the report.  I gave the option of Prezi, PowToons, PowerPoint, iMovie or any other technology-based report.

PowToon Brings Awesomeness to Your Presentation

The result was a huge array of presentations, some flashy, some not.  I found it very difficult to separate the expectations that I had on my rubric from the quality of the presentation.  Could all of the project’s requirements be displayed in a simple Powerpoint?  Yes.  Did I want to give a higher score to the flashy presentations like the YouTube videos or PowToon recordings? Yes, again.  But I didn’t.

My students are arranged by groups, and I knew that Group 2 would attempt a flashy presentation.  The four students were very tech savvy and would find it easy to create an eye-popping presentation.  Group 6, on the other hand, consisted of four students, of whom only one had internet at home.  Group 6 worked on the project after school in the computer lab and the learning curve for the presentation was significantly higher for each of them.

As we progress to more technology-based lessons, teachers must be aware of the 21st century skills that our students have mastered.   What part of the students’ grades is from their technological knowledge, and is that part of the rubric?  Are teachers knowledgeable enough to set standards for technology-based assignments?

There is a growing number of resources that assess and support teachers in our ability to evaluate not only the content knowledge of our students, but the ability to communicate that knowledge through technology.

A couple of websites that I have found helpful are EdTechTeacher.org (http://edtechteacher.org/assessment/) and Evaluating Multimedia Presentations (http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/647).  The EdTech Teacher site uses ISTE standards to help teachers establish rubrics for the use of technology.  The Evaluating Multimedia Presentations site is a guide in establishing the role that technology-based presentations play in our assignments.

I believe that teachers must confront the reality that some students who are not digital natives will struggle with our technology-based assignments.  How do we assess those who are comfortable using technology and those who are not?