Analyst
Educators understand and use data to drive their instruction and support students in achieving their learning goals.
7a Provide alternative ways for students to demonstrate competency and reflect on their learning using technology.
Unpacking Guide
Alternative ways to demonstrate competency: Alternatives for how students demonstrate knowledge, skills, and dispositions might include students exhibiting competency in a final project or presentation; using an e-portfolio system that manages student artifacts and reflections; and allowing students to choose their pathway for learning and when they show competency rather than forcing all learners into the same pace or schedule.
Reflect on their learning: Use digital tools to reflect on the process of learning, successes, and areas for improvement, and to set goals for future adjustments to improve learning focus, process or approach.
7b Use technology to design and implement a variety of formative and summative assessments that accommodate learner needs, provide timely feedback to students and inform instruction.
Unpacking Guide
Formative assessments: For example, apps that take real-time measures of knowledge and understanding through surveys or embedded questions; recording software that allows students to reflect on or explain their thinking; sites and apps where students respond to discussion or reflection questions; and backchannel chats or messaging systems that allow students to ask questions or clarify for each other.
Summative assessments: For example, tests that allow for visual, interactive or other responses as an alternative to traditional testing questions; performance-based assessments that showcase knowledge, process and thinking; portfolios, videos or competency-based assessments that can be completed and evaluated when students feel ready; and tools that differentiate for students of differing abilities.
Accommodate learner needs: Account for and understand diverse student learning needs to support the success of all learners.
Timely feedback: Feedback that maximizes digital tools to provide students substantive feedback as quickly as possible. Examples include built-in data capturing of assessment systems and other digital tools; modeling how to understand and use tool-embedded feedback mechanisms such as ‘help’ tips, error notifications and gamified success or failures; using commenting tools or audio and video tools to provide direct feedback on student work.
Inform instruction: Analyzing assessment data to adjust current instruction or iterate on future instruction. Applies to both class-wide and individual student instruction approaches.
7c Use assessment data to guide progress and communicate with students, parents and education stakeholders to build student self-direction.
Unpacking Guide
Student assessment data: Information from both formative and summative assessments about student strengths, gaps, preferences and current achievement that can be used to adjust and enhance individual student learning.
Student self-direction: Student ownership of learning goals, process, and demonstrations of competency that can be enhanced with transparency and knowledge of how to capitalize on assessment data from teachers, administrators, parents or guardians and students themselves.