Introduction
The Information Technology Performance Tasks contained in this document were originally created in 2002 by a group of teachers in northwestern Vermont with the support from the Vermont Information Technology Association for the Advancement of Learning (VITA-Learn). Through leadership provided by the Vermont Department of Education, these tasks became the basis of the Information Technology Grade Expectations (GEs). After several meetings were held throughout the state where over a hundred Vermont educators gave their feedback, the final document was redrafted and published. Although the original Performance Tasks provided the basis, significant and substantial changes were made based on the input of Vermont educators who attended those meetings. Finally, led by the Department of Education, the revised Performance Tasks in this document were aligned to the new Technology Grade Expectations.
Why Assess Information
Technology?
Many educators have long held that assessing students’ information technology knowledge and skills should be a part of what every educator does on a regular basis. They believe in the new digital world it is simply the right thing to do. We owe it to our students to be certain they have the digital skills to succeed in the 21st century. With the advent of No Child Left Behind Act, the need to assess our students became even more clear.
‘‘(A) To assist every student in crossing
the digital divide by ensuring that every student is technologically
literate by the time the student finishes the eighth grade, regardless of the student’s race, ethnicity,
gender, family income, geographic location, or disability.
Part D—Enhancing Education
Through Technology - SEC. 2402. Purpose and Goals.. Page 404
‘‘(1) … to improve the capacity of all teachers teaching in schools served by the local
educational agency to integrate technology effectively into curricula
and instruction.
Part D—Enhancing Education Through
Technology - SEC. 2414. Local Applications. Page 414
In Vermont we are also driven by Act 60 and later Act 68 which states that all standards identified in the
Vermont Framework must be assessed annually in each of the framework grade
clusters. There are several information technology skills identified in the
Vermont Framework.
Assessing Technology Grade
Expectations
There are multiple ways of assessing the Information Technology Grade Expectations. These include traditional methods of testing such as paper and pencil tests (which we don’t recommend), portfolios, purposeful and structured observation, surveys, and Performance Tasks. This document is about Performance Assessment Tasks.
Performance Tasks are ones which require students to demonstrate that they have mastered specific skills and competencies by performing or producing something. This type of assessment provides teachers with information on how a child understands and applies knowledge. In a performance, students construct rather than select responses. Teachers should share scoring criteria for the assessment task with students prior to working on the task
There are several different ways to record results of performance-based assessment (Airasian, 1991; Stiggins, 1994)
· Checklist Approach – When using this you only have to indicate whether or not certain elements are present in the performances.
· Narrative/Anecdotal Approach – When teachers use this, they write narrative reports of what was done during the performance. From these reports, teachers can determine how well their students met the standards.
· Rating Scale Approach – When teachers use this, they indicate to what degree the standards were met. Usually teachers will use a numeric scale. For instance, one teacher may rate each criterion on a scale of one to five with one meaning “skill barely present” and five meaning “skill extremely well executed.”
· Memory Approach – When teachers use this, they observe students performing the task without taking any notes. They use the information from their memory to determine whether or not the students were successful. (Please note that this approach is not recommended.)
The Tasks contained in this document are intended to be flexible. That is, teachers, schools and districts are encouraged to use them in ways that best meet their needs. They may be used as they are, broken apart and revised or simply used as examples. Some expectations are covered in more than one task. If all tasks are implemented, all Grade Expectations will be assessed.
The Tasks are content neutral. They may be integrated into multiple content areas. We strongly encourage teachers to embed them into content in an integrated fashion. The intention is that they will make the curriculum stronger, easier to teach and learn, expand learning opportunities in the present curriculum, and create entirely new opportunities for learning within the content areas that were previously not possible. As we move forward, it is our hope that content-rich examples and benchmarks will be published and made available to all Vermont educators.
Task Integration into
Content Areas
We strongly recommend that these tasks be purposefully tied to curriculum. Schools and districts must embed these tasks throughout the curriculum development cycle, departments, grade level or team meetings
Formative or Summative
Assessment
There is often a fine line between instruction and assessment. Teachers must provide students multiple opportunities to develop the skills noted in the Grade Expectations prior to formal assessment. We suggest that these assessment tasks become the basis for the development of instructional tasks that teachers develop in order to prepare their students for evaluation.
There are two types of assessment: Formative and Summative. Formative assessment often occurs almost simultaneously with instruction. Its purpose is to provide students with immediate and useful feedback about what they are supposed to know and be able to do. They are often informal and may be embedded directly in the learning experience.
Summative assessments provide a summary of what the student has learned. They usually occur at the end of a lesson or unit of study. Generally, they are not used to give feedback to students but rather to determine how the individual or group stands up against predefined criteria. The Information Technology Performance Assessment Tasks in this document are intended to be Summative.
Performance Tasks in the
Early Grades
There are very few expectations to be assessed in PreK-K. Consequently, we have not developed Tasks for this level. Primary teachers must look at subsequent grade expectations to have a greater understanding of the learning opportunities they must provide for their students in order to prepare them for assessments in the subsequent grades.
Referencing the Grade
Expectations
In the previous edition of the Technology Performance Assessment Tasks, the tasks were followed by a rubric. It is these rubrics that became the basis for the current Grade Expectations. The revised Performance Tasks in this document are followed by the actual Grade Expectations that will be assessed in that particular task. As you will see, they are not in rubric format. If a school/district wishes to put them in a rubric format, they may want to use the format that was used in the original Performance Task document. There were three levels to the rubric in that document. Level 1- if a student did not meet the expectation it was noted that they needed assistance to complete that part of the task, Level 2 – if a student met the expectation independently, and Level 3 if a student exceeded the expectation to a degree at or better then the next grade (cluster) level.
Implementation of a successful assessment program does not happen overnight. Schools/districts should develop an implementation strategy and timeline. Normally, we should not expect students who have never had instruction using a complicated piece of software to master it and be assessed in the period of one instructional unit… or even in one academic year. Nor can we expect that teachers will extend their units of instruction over long periods of time so that their students are at the mastery level.
Students must be given multiple opportunities to develop their “expertise” using technology equipment and applications. Consequently, if students are going to be assessed in a specific grade using certain functions of a software application, the concepts must be introduced and reinforced in previous years. How do we determine what needs to be introduced and reinforced and when this should occur? Clearly, districts can do this for themselves. It is our hope to develop a sample Instructional Guide and make it available to all districts in the near future.
Tools and Procedures for Collecting, Recording, Managing and Reporting
Teachers, schools, and districts must develop tools and procedures for assessing the Technology Grade Expectations. How assessment occurs, using what tools, how the results will be recorded and finally reported are all questions that will need careful consideration. The more standardized the assessments and tools, the greater the chances that your results will be valid and reliable.
Not all knowledge and skills in the Grade Expectations are easily assessed in a performance task. Some are best assessed over time. Consequently, some of the Grade Expectations are not specifically referenced in the performance tasks. For your convenience, these are listed after the last task in each grade cluster in a table called On-going. Please note that even though these tasks must be assessed over time, it is important to be purposeful about the assessment and document results as you normally would for a performance task.
