Promises and Perils for Classroom Assessments in the Digital Era

• In Event: AERA E. F. Lindquist Award (2019) Lecture: Promises and Perils for Classroom Assessments in the Digital Era

Abstract

In this presentation, I will initially review “promises” and “perils” for classroom assessment in terms of (a) digital enhancements that enable us to do the usual things more easily/efficiently/faster/etc., and (b) those that enable us to do new things. This will apply to both good things (promises), and bad things (perils). In fact, many of these advancements will actually function in ways that intertwine the good with the bad. A key aspect that will need to be made clear in any IT applications will be the content grain-size—and I will delineate two levels that I see as particularly important in the classroom: (a) the micro level, which is the target of assessment in the service of teacher planning and monitoring for the classroom and/or groups in the classroom, and (b) the nano level, which is concerned with student learning at the finest level. The rest of this presentation focuses on the teacherly planning and monitoring level (i.e., the micro level) using the perspectives of the BEAR Assessment System to illuminate an example of the roles of digital tools. This will then be linked to a novel observational assessment at the nano level, and the potentials of this dual system for classroom assessment will be discussed.

Author

• Mark R. Wilson, University of California - Berkeley