Introduction
I have been a classroom teacher for ten years now. When I first began, the only technology in my classroom was an overhead projector with transparencies. A lot has changed since then, including the way that I teach. The shift towards technology driven instruction has made my job as a teacher not only easier, but it also appears to have a positive impact on student learning in the classroom. My goal is to determine if using chromebooks paired with technology enhanced formative assessments (TEPA) in class is helping my students achieve higher mastery of the content presented to them in class.
Advances in the Modern Classroom
After teaching for a few years in an underperforming district, our principal invested in a classroom set …show more content…
Some teachers resist change, including the use of technology. Many teachers rely on formative assessments using a “show of hands”. This may give the teacher an idea of how many students feel comfortable with a topic, but it does not provide insight to how much they know(Herr, et al, . Another popular method is the use of whiteboards. This is a method that I used to use myself. Again, there were many problems that I faced. First, was the distribution of markers, whiteboards and erasers. Then using more class time to replace any markers that had dried up. Next came the issue of students doodling on their whiteboard instead of paying attention. When I was finally able to ask a question and ask responses, I had to quickly process 35 whiteboards held up in the air at once. The largest drawback, however, was the inability to revisit student answers after they erased their whiteboards. Their answers were gone forever. A solution to this is to have students use notebooks to respond to questions in class. But, again, the logistics proves to be challenging. For these reasons it is not surprising that teachers were looking for better solutions to their problems. Classrooms began moving to a 1:1 classroom device model which include netbooks, iPads. Cell phones, and Chromebooks. There is not a lot of research into the effectiveness of Chromebook use in the classroom …show more content…
The blending of the two is sometimes referred to as Technology Enhanced Formative Assessments (TEFA). The use of the Google apps suite (Drive, Docs, Slides, Presentations, Drawings, sheets, and Forms) gives a teacher many different ways to track student learning. When a teacher shares a Google Document with a student or group of students, the teacher and the students all have direct access to editing. Everybody can be in the same document at the same time making edits. One method a teacher can use to continuously access learning is called the Quick write. The Quick Write is a google Sheet that the teacher shares with the entire class. Each student is designated a row on the sheet for them to input answers. When a question is presented, the student can go to their designated cell on the sheet to answer the question. After everyone has answered, the teacher can look at the responses and open a discussion with the class looking at the various answers (Herr et al.,
I have been a classroom teacher for ten years now. When I first began, the only technology in my classroom was an overhead projector with transparencies. A lot has changed since then, including the way that I teach. The shift towards technology driven instruction has made my job as a teacher not only easier, but it also appears to have a positive impact on student learning in the classroom. My goal is to determine if using chromebooks paired with technology enhanced formative assessments (TEPA) in class is helping my students achieve higher mastery of the content presented to them in class.
Advances in the Modern Classroom
After teaching for a few years in an underperforming district, our principal invested in a classroom set …show more content…
Some teachers resist change, including the use of technology. Many teachers rely on formative assessments using a “show of hands”. This may give the teacher an idea of how many students feel comfortable with a topic, but it does not provide insight to how much they know(Herr, et al, . Another popular method is the use of whiteboards. This is a method that I used to use myself. Again, there were many problems that I faced. First, was the distribution of markers, whiteboards and erasers. Then using more class time to replace any markers that had dried up. Next came the issue of students doodling on their whiteboard instead of paying attention. When I was finally able to ask a question and ask responses, I had to quickly process 35 whiteboards held up in the air at once. The largest drawback, however, was the inability to revisit student answers after they erased their whiteboards. Their answers were gone forever. A solution to this is to have students use notebooks to respond to questions in class. But, again, the logistics proves to be challenging. For these reasons it is not surprising that teachers were looking for better solutions to their problems. Classrooms began moving to a 1:1 classroom device model which include netbooks, iPads. Cell phones, and Chromebooks. There is not a lot of research into the effectiveness of Chromebook use in the classroom …show more content…
The blending of the two is sometimes referred to as Technology Enhanced Formative Assessments (TEFA). The use of the Google apps suite (Drive, Docs, Slides, Presentations, Drawings, sheets, and Forms) gives a teacher many different ways to track student learning. When a teacher shares a Google Document with a student or group of students, the teacher and the students all have direct access to editing. Everybody can be in the same document at the same time making edits. One method a teacher can use to continuously access learning is called the Quick write. The Quick Write is a google Sheet that the teacher shares with the entire class. Each student is designated a row on the sheet for them to input answers. When a question is presented, the student can go to their designated cell on the sheet to answer the question. After everyone has answered, the teacher can look at the responses and open a discussion with the class looking at the various answers (Herr et al.,