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Assessment practices in 21st century may need to be the biggest change in pedagogy in order for students to be successful in the future. As a society and in most business models, people rarely work or create independently. We work on teams to contribute to tasks, and solve problems. In this respect, teachers need to be incorporating assessment practices that reflect this type of work, by integrating ongoing collaborative assessment in the projects that students create.
All assessment should be formative, and ongoing. Teachers should no longer be assessing final summative projects, but rather be looking for evidence of student learning throughout the creations of texts and multimodal projects in ongoing learning environments. That said, educators need to, not only be focusing on learning outcomes, but rather on the enactment in the process. . Students should not be asked to rote learn specific knowledge, (Cope, Kalantzis, McCarthey, Vojak, & Kline, 2011, p. 80) but rather how to use digital tools (Cope, Kalantzis, McCarthey, Vojak, & Kline, 2011, p. 83) in order to find, and apply information from those sources. Teachers need to be looking at the tools students are using to access and integrate knowledge, and assess them through the evidence of the process in their design of multimodal texts, and presentations. Jacobs (2013) suggests that multiliteracies assessment is about “noticing what students are doing, and then using that information to guide students towards new skills and knowledge” (p. 626). Today’s ‘end of unit’ summative assessments, often do not offer students to change and grow through the learning process. Their projects are graded, commented on, and then students move on to the next topic, with no time to reflect on their learning in order to improve. Through the use of ongoing formative assessment, students are able to be nurtured, and provided ongoing feedback through situated practice, and from the collaborative communities in which they are learning. Assessment needs to move away from rigid expectations, and multiple choice rote-knowledge testing, to project based learning that promotes creativity, through the use of new novel multiliterate forms, that encourage growth through collaborative problem solving, and trying new ideas. (Cope, Kalantzis, McCarthey, Vojak, & Kline, 2011, p. 80) Jacobs (2013) suggests that “multiliteracies assessment asks for a different set of questions. Once a teacher is routinely asking questions that build on a pedagogy of multiliteracies, then a new way of envisioning assessment will emerge” (p. 626). Not only do teachers need to be asking students questions, but they need to be using student answers, and written multimodal designs to provide feedback based on those questions and answers. In order for students to reach their full potential in acquiring 21st century literacy skills, they require immediate, methodical, continuous, rapid, and explicit detailed feedback (Cope, Kalantzis, McCarthey, Vojak, & Kline, 2011). By providing students with immediate feedback, they are able to change the way that they are thinking, or creating as they move through the design and creation process, and thus come out with a better multimodal text as their end result. Current assessment after the fact, does not allow students to learn as much during the process, or reflect on their learning until after they have completed their work. Digital formats for online multimodal writing provide educators with a variety of ways to comment, although conferencing, and student discussion groups (Cope, Kalantzis, McCarthey, Vojak, & Kline, 2011, p. 85) are also necessary forms of feedback. Cope et al (2011) “imagine a technology-mediated writing environment of the near future where it will be possible to provide continuous and specific feedback to learners; [using] a multimodal format that can accommodate different expressive needs and learning styles” (p.81). Providing comments that are differentiated by student need are essential in the future of literacy instruction. Teachers will be able to use their students preferred format to comment in the form of audio messages, typed text, and explanatory videos. With the technology that we are afforded in today’s world, and moreover into the future, we are capable of creating environments like this through online platforms. Through online posting of multimodal writing activities, students will be able to work on continuous collaborative projects, with ongoing formative assessment, and constant peer, teacher, and outside feedback. Not only will teachers be able to assess students work, through online methods, but they will have a constant supply of data related to their work in this platform. Online environments can be used “to collect and analyze the work students do both separately and in comparison with each other; to track progress of individuals over time; to compare individual performance to groups; and to track cohorts of students. (Cope, Kalantzis, McCarthey, Vojak, & Kline, 2011, p. 81). When looking at how to assess 21st century projects and multimodal texts, educators need to look at a variety of criteria in able to assess the whole package. Teachers need to look at the process of how students completed their projects, how they incorporated multimodalities, how they worked as a group, and how they transformed the digital text of project to make meaning of their own (Jacobs, 2013, p. 625). |