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Educational assessment and ict arro

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Grete Arro

This document discusses the importance of educational assessment in developing effective ICT-based educational solutions. It makes three key points: 1) Existing ICT initiatives have been isolated and fragmented, focusing on infrastructure without supporting teachers and students to effectively use new technologies. As a result, many projects ended after piloting. 2) For ICT solutions to improve learning outcomes, they must be developed in cooperation with educational psychologists and be informed by theories of cognitive development and learning. Solutions need to assess students' skills and knowledge and adapt accordingly. 3) Educational assessment should be theoretically grounded, multi-level, longitudinal, and methodologically diverse to understand the complex interaction between individual and environmental factors influencing development. Properly designed

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Educational psychology challenges and possibilities of assessment Grete Arro Research fellow in Institute of Pscychology and Educational Innovation Centre, Tallinn University
ICT in education highway to the better future. (Indeed) ICT in education - new technologies, innovative learning- and teaching methods, digital content -> More up-to-date and open educational space will result in high-quality and effective education -> -> impacts to economy, international competitiveness, better skilled workers Digital techology integrated into all aspects of our life except education (SWD 2013 341 final)
But also - The potential impact ICT educational solutions and digital content is widely recognized - Several ICT-based learning initiatives are started - However - initiatives have been isolated and fragmented - Investments to the infrastructure often do not bring along the ability and motivation of teachers and students to use them - Thus, many projects have ended after the piloting phase (SWD 2013 341 final)
- Learning, like every behavior, occurs in interaction between individual and environment - The effectiveness of learning is related to the ability of the learning environment (whether it be the teacher or ICT- solution) to specify the current level of ability/ skills/ knowledge/ motivation/ attitudes of the learner and design an appropriate learning context - The ICT-tool itself does not do anything, if it does not understand cognitive development and adapt to the developmental level and specific learning difficulties of the learner; but it can be developed in a developmentally informed way Why assessment is important
Detecting and addressing learning difficulties problems in all levels from basic processes to complex ones is what the new tools ought to do (and this mindset is one of the secrets behind the Finnish educational miracle, too) Pedagogical philosophy and practice: The school is there for every child and the school must adjust to the needs of each child, not the other way around (Aro et al., 2011) this ought to be the leading motive of ICT-solutions as well addressing that idea assumes that ICT educational solutions are developed in (furious) cooperation with cognitive psychologists and teachers What and how to assess comes before designing the new and shiny educational solutions to avoid the situation Whe have a spaceship here! Lets fly to somewhere!
Examples of what Im talking about: A game for helping children learning to read
even more examples: learning compex things with a system that follows your reasoning process
adaptively foster self-regulated learning
use the adaptive comparative marking to judge the performance
or help children with attention problems
The fundamental focus of educational research - Development occurs in the interaction of individual and environmental factors - In order to understand (optimal) development, both types of factors need to be studied, as well as their joint impact
(Aro et al., 2011; Melzer, 1996)
Thus educational assessment needs to be: - theoretically oriented in our case: cultural-historical, constructivistic - structural-systemic as we need to understand the new emerging wholes - multi-levelled as there are aspects affecting the child on individual and on group/class/school level - longitudinal as development is understandable only when the change in important variables is observed - methodologically diverse cognitive ability tests, standardized self- report scales, open-ended questionnaires, experimental methods etc which is the case in our research projects
Examples of the projects Project SHTHK06126 Effectiveness of Estonian primary school (2006- 2009) Project RU/2712 Bilingual child in Estonian school (2009-2014) Project S10012 General competencies and their assessment (2011-2014) Project KA/8914 Developing Test Battery for Assessing Basic School Students Psychological Processes and Educating Support Specialists (2014-2016) and many others
Assessment sounds nice, but why talk about it in the context of ICT in education? - Development of psychological processes is not directly observable in the classroom it is difficult or impossible for the teacher to observe motivational, cognitive, or executive processes - Thus, learning difficulties or -deficits may remain unattended and the respective functions or processes will not be developed - ICT-based educational assessment/learning solutions might help in real time to find out the problems in different levels of complexity from basic cognitive processes (e.g. working memory), executive functioning (e.g., planning, effort regulation), learning strategies (organizing information for memorizing), or motivation (indirectly or self-assessed) - in case the developer of the digital solution knows, what is important to measure.
- Adaptive testing/learning vs traditional classroom if some process is difficult for the learner, moving on and leaving the problem unaddressed is a problem. - If practicing, offered by the adaptive digital solution, does not work (e.g. because of some neurological problem), the child may get help earlier as the tool may act as a preliminary diagnostic device and inform the adult/teacher about it.
Conclusions all this is well-known; there are numerous ICT-based assessment tools and learning environments developed; However, most of the classrooms are still traditional, both in the sense of ICT tools and in being developmentally sensible As in-depth and complex educational ICT-based assessment assumes a number of different topics and research questions to be addressed, cooperation between research institutions would be recommended in order not to remain fragmented
Benefits of educational psychology research in TLU - Research group with very different and indepth research interests and experience in cognitive processes, motivation, general competencies - Experience in complex (child-school-teacher-parent) and longitudinal educational research projects - Size matters - it is easy to achieve the representative sample of schoolchildren in a small country like Estonia - Size matters once again nothing is there yet - no fixed governmental educational assessment system -> possibility to build it up flexibly - Relatively reasonable research funding system - A lot of internet everywhere!
Thank you If you want to discuss interesting stuff, please contact arro@tlu.ee or skype gretearro

More Related Content

Educational assessment and ict arro

  • 1. Educational psychology challenges and possibilities of assessment Grete Arro Research fellow in Institute of Pscychology and Educational Innovation Centre, Tallinn University
  • 2. ICT in education highway to the better future. (Indeed) ICT in education - new technologies, innovative learning- and teaching methods, digital content -> More up-to-date and open educational space will result in high-quality and effective education -> -> impacts to economy, international competitiveness, better skilled workers Digital techology integrated into all aspects of our life except education (SWD 2013 341 final)
  • 3. But also - The potential impact ICT educational solutions and digital content is widely recognized - Several ICT-based learning initiatives are started - However - initiatives have been isolated and fragmented - Investments to the infrastructure often do not bring along the ability and motivation of teachers and students to use them - Thus, many projects have ended after the piloting phase (SWD 2013 341 final)
  • 4. - Learning, like every behavior, occurs in interaction between individual and environment - The effectiveness of learning is related to the ability of the learning environment (whether it be the teacher or ICT- solution) to specify the current level of ability/ skills/ knowledge/ motivation/ attitudes of the learner and design an appropriate learning context - The ICT-tool itself does not do anything, if it does not understand cognitive development and adapt to the developmental level and specific learning difficulties of the learner; but it can be developed in a developmentally informed way Why assessment is important
  • 5. Detecting and addressing learning difficulties problems in all levels from basic processes to complex ones is what the new tools ought to do (and this mindset is one of the secrets behind the Finnish educational miracle, too) Pedagogical philosophy and practice: The school is there for every child and the school must adjust to the needs of each child, not the other way around (Aro et al., 2011) this ought to be the leading motive of ICT-solutions as well addressing that idea assumes that ICT educational solutions are developed in (furious) cooperation with cognitive psychologists and teachers What and how to assess comes before designing the new and shiny educational solutions to avoid the situation Whe have a spaceship here! Lets fly to somewhere!
  • 6. Examples of what Im talking about: A game for helping children learning to read
  • 7. even more examples: learning compex things with a system that follows your reasoning process
  • 9. use the adaptive comparative marking to judge the performance
  • 10. or help children with attention problems
  • 11. The fundamental focus of educational research - Development occurs in the interaction of individual and environmental factors - In order to understand (optimal) development, both types of factors need to be studied, as well as their joint impact
  • 12. (Aro et al., 2011; Melzer, 1996)
  • 13. Thus educational assessment needs to be: - theoretically oriented in our case: cultural-historical, constructivistic - structural-systemic as we need to understand the new emerging wholes - multi-levelled as there are aspects affecting the child on individual and on group/class/school level - longitudinal as development is understandable only when the change in important variables is observed - methodologically diverse cognitive ability tests, standardized self- report scales, open-ended questionnaires, experimental methods etc which is the case in our research projects
  • 14. Examples of the projects Project SHTHK06126 Effectiveness of Estonian primary school (2006- 2009) Project RU/2712 Bilingual child in Estonian school (2009-2014) Project S10012 General competencies and their assessment (2011-2014) Project KA/8914 Developing Test Battery for Assessing Basic School Students Psychological Processes and Educating Support Specialists (2014-2016) and many others
  • 15. Assessment sounds nice, but why talk about it in the context of ICT in education? - Development of psychological processes is not directly observable in the classroom it is difficult or impossible for the teacher to observe motivational, cognitive, or executive processes - Thus, learning difficulties or -deficits may remain unattended and the respective functions or processes will not be developed - ICT-based educational assessment/learning solutions might help in real time to find out the problems in different levels of complexity from basic cognitive processes (e.g. working memory), executive functioning (e.g., planning, effort regulation), learning strategies (organizing information for memorizing), or motivation (indirectly or self-assessed) - in case the developer of the digital solution knows, what is important to measure.
  • 16. - Adaptive testing/learning vs traditional classroom if some process is difficult for the learner, moving on and leaving the problem unaddressed is a problem. - If practicing, offered by the adaptive digital solution, does not work (e.g. because of some neurological problem), the child may get help earlier as the tool may act as a preliminary diagnostic device and inform the adult/teacher about it.
  • 17. Conclusions all this is well-known; there are numerous ICT-based assessment tools and learning environments developed; However, most of the classrooms are still traditional, both in the sense of ICT tools and in being developmentally sensible As in-depth and complex educational ICT-based assessment assumes a number of different topics and research questions to be addressed, cooperation between research institutions would be recommended in order not to remain fragmented
  • 18. Benefits of educational psychology research in TLU - Research group with very different and indepth research interests and experience in cognitive processes, motivation, general competencies - Experience in complex (child-school-teacher-parent) and longitudinal educational research projects - Size matters - it is easy to achieve the representative sample of schoolchildren in a small country like Estonia - Size matters once again nothing is there yet - no fixed governmental educational assessment system -> possibility to build it up flexibly - Relatively reasonable research funding system - A lot of internet everywhere!
  • 19. Thank you If you want to discuss interesting stuff, please contact arro@tlu.ee or skype gretearro