Assessments in the Educational Process
Due to assessment's high efficacy as a tool for demonstrating outcomes and enhancing student learning generally, it is a crucial component of the educational process. The effectiveness of assessments is highest when the educational program has precise, concise goals. The assessment in this instance aims to help kindergarten students' language and artistic abilities. I conducted my observation in a kindergarten session. While other students were occupied with stations, two students were already using computers; one was on myON.
Power of Technology Integration
Since the students now have access to specialized material, the technology integration in the educational program gives the students more power. The teacher has to assess the students' abilities from time to time to check their mastery of the content taught. Assessment should be an ongoing exercise as its power is cumulative (Schmeck, 2013). It is through assessments that the teacher can identify the areas of weakness for the students and develop appropriate measures to improve their proficiency in these areas.
Efficient Assessment Strategies
In the case study, the teacher usually asked a question related to the discussion topic at the start of the lesson. The teacher randomly picked students to check their responses which he/she uses to assess the students' prior understanding of the discussion topic. Even so, during the English lessons, the teacher would ask the students to describe the objects or meaning of words by use of art. The technological platform, myON, helped them understand better the object or meaning of words tailored for that lesson. This form of assessment is highly efficient as the teacher gets a baseline of the students' understanding from which they could build on further teaching strategy.
Engaging Assessment Methods
Regarding the teacher's assessment choices, I would seek to engage the students, even among themselves. Instead of purely seeking random answers to assess their understanding on the specific topic, I would keep the question going (Falchikov, 2013). I would ask one student a question and ask another student if the answer given by the previous student is correct. After that, I would ask a third student to explain why it is correct or not correct; this assessment method helps in engaging the students more and assess the different aspects of the students' learning-recognition of the topic/object, and understanding its use/application. Coupled with my own platform, the students will reap more as they integrate the same methodology when learning from the platform.
References
Falchikov, N. (2013). Improving assessment through student involvement: Practical solutions for aiding learning in higher and further education. Routledge.
Schmeck, R. R. (2013). Learning strategies and learning styles. Springer Science & Business Media.
