week eleven, summative evaluation for my course

For the summative evaluation I would choose to have the students write an eight to ten page paper about educational technology and it's value. Elements to include in the paper would meet back to the outcomes stated in the course outline.

Directions to learners:

1. Give your paper a title that describes the topic.
2. Pay attention to the length of your paper. It should be eight to ten pages, not including title and reference pages.
3. Your paper should follow the American Psychological Association's guidelines.
4. Use headings and subheadings to organize your paper.
5. Suggested headings may be the following:

• The value of technology in education
• How technology can enhance the educational experience
• Tools for learning
• How using technological tools can transfer into skills outside of the classroom
• Tools for evaluation
• Enhancing pedagogy using technology

6. Proper terminology of educational technology and it's appropriate interpretation should be included in the paper.
7. Every paper requires an introduction and a conclusion. Include a brief explanation of the topic in your introduction.

The pros of having the students write a paper on the topic is that it gives them a chance to express in words what they have discovered during the course. It is an opportunity to curate all the pieces and make sense of them in one place, using words to fully express their relevance. It gives me, the evaluator, a chance to see how the learners have assimilated the information and made sense of it in their own contexts.
I am not sure that there are any cons to this strategy. It might be noted that in the formative evaluations there would be opportunities to assess the skills involved in operating the technology.
I could have a practical component to the summative evaluations as well. Summative evaluations could be split into a practical exam and a final written paper.  For the sake of this exercise I have chosen the paper as my final summative assessment.

I would use the rubric model to mark the papers and would provide feedback in the marking process. I would make the rubric available to the learners in advance so that they have clarity about what is expected beyond the instructions.

A little aside on confirmative evaluations... In my own courses in the Esthetician program in which I teach, it might be very difficult to seek out confirmative evaluations. My learners scatter to the wind after graduating. In this course with educators it might be easier to track them down to perform some confirmative evaluations. As Morrison et al (2103) points out, it is of interest to the evaluator to assess whether or not the learners continue to perform successfully over time and does the course need to be revised to be more effective.  I often wonder how my grads are doing and I like the idea of confirmative evaluations. A quick online survey using Survey Monkey would work well. :)

C.