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Creating Products to Assess Mastery in the Online Environment


Reflect: Reflect on your teaching experience and pinpoint a project, assignment or assessment you have previously assigned or are currently utilizing with your students to assess mastery of a content area concept. If you do not have classroom teaching experience, consider an assignment type often associated with your content area. For example, an essay for an English course, a series of math problems for a math class, or a basic lab for a science class. You may also want to consider an assignment, project or assessment your own child has been assigned at school or an assignment you have completed as a learner.

My face-to-face instruction follows the project-based learning model.  Consequently, most of my summative assessments are project based as well.  One of these project-based summative assessments is “La casa de mis sueños” (My Dream House), in which students use unit specific vocabulary and grammar to create an authentic product in the target language: a detailed and labeled floor plan, along with a written description and oral presentation of their dream house.  Students use the grading rubric to guide their work.

One of the strengths of this assessment is that it comprehensively measures what students have learned throughout the unit.  The unit is comprised of several lessons and mini-lessons.  At the end of each one of these lessons and mini-lessons, students have completed formative assessments and received feedback on their performance.  This feedback enables them to make adjustments and fine-tune the final product.  

Regarding accessibility and taking into account that this is an art-based and hands on project, students with certain physical disabilities will need to have an alternative option to demonstrate mastery of the content standards addressed in the unit.  Transforming this low-level tech project into a high-level tech project will allow students with varying physical abilities to demonstrate their knowledge of the content in a way that better meets their individual needs.

After exploring a variety of interactive media tools, I came across SmartDraw.  SmartDraw allows the user to draw graphs and diagrams and then import and export them as need.  But it also has a wide variety of editable templates, including floor plans, ready to use.  With SmartDraw and the two options that offers, I could transform this project-based summative assessment into a tiered assignment, offering two ways for students to demonstrate mastery of content standards.

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