Reflection+Five


 * // How has technology impacted or changed your classroom assessment and evaluation? Has your data collection methodology changed with technology? If technology has not impacted your assessment and evaluation, what would you like to change? Discuss technology and your own productivity and professional practice. // **


 * Teachers have always collected data. My concern with all of the new tools for collecting data is that we have undermined the teacher's ability to make conclusions about their own students on a day to day basis. To me, the ability to collect data via a tool has become the "truth" when indeed, it is only part of the picture. One score should never be used in isolation to determine anything. Although, advocates of today's assessment tools publicly agree to this statement, in practice, these scores are used in isolation to make career changing decisions. For example, data collected via OAA go through a mathematical process to determine the effectiveness of a teacher. This one score determines 50% of a teacher's overall score on the OTES evaluation at the end of each school year. We use benchmarking scores to determine intervention needs. Often times the score supersedes other data collected informally by the teacher because it was collected //informally//. Other times, this benchmarking score is not a valid indicator, but because it was collected in a seemingly sterile and unadulterated way, it carries a lot of weight. Data collection is important, but outside data collection sources have taken over the classroom. As a result, many teachers are feeling extremely overwhelmed by all of the data we must collect, document, analyze, and act upon on a regular basis. They are also frustrated by all of the data that is being collected about them that is being documented, analyzed and acted upon. Most teachers are advocates of learning centered and student centered classrooms. What is now prevalent in the American classroom is data driven classrooms. If first impressions mean anything, this has been detrimental to teacher morale more than any other time in the past 21 years. I support the collection of data. It is the intensity of the data and how we use the data once it is collected that have become a great source of stress for our current school systems, both for students and educators. **