Custom term paper Formative assessment and technology use to improve student achievement

Recommendations on learning improvement
4.1. Guidelines for enhancing learning achievements
As a result of literature analysis and discussion of major issues of using new technologies and formative assessment in particular for learning, it is possible to develop recommendations for key stakeholders in learning process, i.e. administration and teachers. These recommendations are aimed at improving student achievement by using technology. For administration, it is will be efficient to:
 Review and reconsider educational standards and set specific student-centered goals;
 Create interdisciplinary groups for exploring new applications of technology to learning
 Develop technology plans for schools
 Outline specific issues that require improvement at school level, and select proper technologies
 Gather information about best practices of using technologies for learning, and create a publicly available database describing or giving access to these achievements
 Take control over compliance of the school’s development with state an district technology plans
 Consider factors that might undermine efficient use of technology for teaching
 Provide equal access to new technologies for all students
 Create opportunities for teachers’ development and constant professional growth
 Adjust school day and timetable to the changing conditions
 Use effective techniques of evaluating the achievements and learning goals
For teachers, it is recommended to:
 Clearly identify the purpose of using a particular technology in learning process
 Keep in vision learning goals, and adjust implementation of technology with these goals
 Develop curricula which contains various learning activities, including use of technology
 Cooperate and collaborate with colleagues for the purpose of developing new curricula
 Support learning circles on various topics
 Encouraging students to gain experience with technology via various research and explorative activities
 Create conditions for collaborative work of students and discussions of work
 Integrate various kinds of formative assessments into learning process
 Give chances for public demonstration of students’ works, getting parents to this process
 Show real-world value of technology and its applications to students
 Maintain professional development and learn new methods of using technology to improve student achievementcustom term paper
4.2. Limitations caused by new technologies
The overall focus on technological advance may lead to pressure on administration to integrate new facilities, and may result in hasty financial or implementation decisions (Whitehead & Jensen & Boschee, 2003). In order to overcome this risk, thorough planning with the help of technical professionals is needed. Also, educational goals should be first of all taken into account when planning technological spending. Thus, prior to purchasing, these goals also have to be carefully and reasonably defined.
During first years, enough time has to be devoted to mastering the technology itself; otherwise, first projects with use of new technologies provide little content learning (Goldman, Cole, & Syer, 1999). Also, evaluating the impact of technology might be difficult due to absence of proper techniques and approaches. Thus, new assessment strategies have to be invented to overcome this limitation. It is hard to overestimate the role of formative assessments in evaluating the effect of new technologies on learning.
Conclusion
Approximately 10 years ago, students had very limited access to technology, and granting access to it was considered one of the main objectives (Hitlin & Rainie, 2005). Nowadays, almost every school has Internet access, not speaking about availability of computers at schools. Pervasiveness of technology in the society has also increased: according to Hitlin and Rainie (2005), 87% of young people aged from 12 to 17 use Internet, and 86% of all young people state that Internet increases their educational achievements. Changed environment also has created new skills requirements for successful students and workers (Kay and Honey, 2005): effective communication using modern technologies, data interpretation and analysis, ability to prioritize and manage tasks, better problem-solving skills, use of computational modeling and ability to maintain digital security.
With implementing technology into learning environment, the whole educational systems changes and becomes more learner-focused. The use and integration of formative assessments becomes natural in computer-aided environment. The great advantage of formative assessments is that they provide a variety of problem-solving situations to monitor and influence learning performance in the course of time. Use of formative assessments promotes the goals of lifelong learning (Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, 2005) and allows to achieve greater quality of students’ learning achievements as well as improve the skills of “learning to learn”.
Technology also may be used to enhance teachers’ professional development (Love, 2002), improve their skills of framing questions, formulating hypotheses, making conclusions and estimating the results of their work. However, it should not be expected that simply adding new technologies to learning process will solve all the problems; in order to be effective, technology-enriched learning has to comply with educational goals, and should be accompanied with proper teaching strategies implemented by qualified professionals.

 
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