Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

4 assessment questions every educator should ask

New report offers guidance, insight on important assessment features

assessment-questionsAs many states begin to implement online assessments to gauge student learning under the Common Core State Standards, administrators are faced with a number of important considerations that accompany implementation.

A new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE) presents four important assessment questions that policy makers and educators should ask.

“College- and career-ready standards without high-quality assessments aligned to them to advance learning is like peanut butter without jelly,” said Bob Wise, AEE president and former governor of West Virginia. “Current tests are insufficient to measure these higher learning goals and fail to deliver the information that students, teachers, and parents need to ensure that students are on a trajectory to be ready for college and a career by the time they graduate from high school.”…Read More

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3 approaches to online assessments

With the approach of online assessments, three districts are tackling the challenge

online-assessmentsOnline assessments are a key part of the Common Core State Standards, but these new assessments don’t come without obstacles. Adequate high-speed internet access, infrastructure, computers, funding, and manpower are just a few of states’ top concerns when it comes to properly implementing and administering online assessments in the next year.

Here’s a look at how three different states or districts are approaching online assessments. And while each approach is different, school leaders often share the same concerns.

Many schools don’t have the technology needed to give New Mexico’s new online standardized assessment scheduled for statewide adoption next year. School districts still have a year to prepare, but technology departments must hustle to make sure their schools have the computers, internet routers, and bandwidth necessary to comply with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) exam, which replaces the statewide paper-and-pencil test.…Read More

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A key priority for ed-tech leaders: Meeting Common Core needs

While school IT leaders voiced support the Common Core, they noted a number of concerns that could affect their ability to meet the standards’ ed-tech requirements.

School superintendents and curriculum directors aren’t the only K-12 administrators worried about the changes being ushered in with the Common Core standards: In a recent survey, 83 percent of ed-tech leaders said preparing for Common Core assessments is among their top three priorities—and 62 percent fear they won’t have enough IT infrastructure to support online testing.

The survey of 300 school IT professionals comes from CDW-G, which released the results of its poll on what ed-tech leaders think about the Common Core standards during the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in San Antonio last week.

The Common Core State Standards, which all but five U.S. states have adopted, are designed to ensure that students have the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in college and the workforce. To that end, a critical element of the Common Core is technology that supports teaching, learning, and student assessment—and ed-tech leaders are feeling the pressure this entails.…Read More

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