Individualise Your Teaching With The Help of Digital Assessment

Author:
Katia Al-Kaisi
Finnish Education Advocator, Entrepreneur, making Finnish work in theMiddle East

Original published in Teach Middle East Magazine April 2020

I spoke with Dr. Kirsi Wallinheimo an expert in distance education to get her thoughts on how we can individualise teaching with the help of digital assessment.

As children are learning new ways to study, student assessment takes new forms as well, and that has an impact on teaching. This school term has turned out to be wildly different from what any of us – teachers, principals, students or parents – ever expected. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, we are suddenly forced into adapting digital learning and teaching with a speed totally unimagined. And it does not help that this is happening in a situation that is likely to be stressful for many families.

Luckily, we do have the technology, which makes digital and remote learning possible. But as isolation and school closures are going to be in place for the rest of the academic year, the situation also has an influence on how students’ learning should be evaluated.

New Technology Brings Possibilities

Studying at home, in isolation from friends and teachers, poses challenges for children. Even though the first reaction of many children towards school closures may have been a series of hurrahs, the reality is starting to set in.

“Children are used to getting feedback, encouragement and guidance from a teacher who is physically present,” explains Finnish education expert, PhD Kirsi Wallinheimo. “In distance learning this is not always possible, and it may have an effect especially on younger and more quiet students, who gravitate towards constant feedback.”

This in turn can mean that some students cannot keep up with their usual level of achievement.

But challenges can be overcome. Teachers need to learn to give personal attention to students even in digital environments. It might not always be possible, when the whole class has a meeting in Zoom or Teams. But there are digital assessment platforms, such as Qridi, Edmodo and Socrative, which may make it possible for a teacher to keep track of students’ individual progress. The information gathered with such technology could prove useful in group distance learning situations too, so that the teacher can choose to pay more attention to students who are in a need of it.

Wellbeing First

Children’s motivation and capacity to study is very much linked to their wellbeing. As said before, we are living in stressful times. Isolation and uncertainty are hard on parents too, and emotions might spill over in families more easily than normal. Some children go through the current changes in their everyday life with a laid-back attitude,but for some the burden might be almost unbearable.

Digital assessment platforms collect learning analytics, and when the teacher has no possibility to meet with their students face-to-face, this information has a magnitude of value.

“Not all parents can – or have a chance to – support and guide their children’s learning during this isolation period,” Dr. Wallinheimo notes.

Apart from assessing learning, learning analytics may help educators to take notice of aspects of student well-being. Has an eager learner become demotivated towards their studies? Has a student,who was formerly unable to concentrate and thus under-performing, suddenly begun thriving? These sorts of changes in a student’s behaviour and attitude can be identified through formative assessment and it helps the teacher to understand the student’s life-situation better.

Formative Assessment Takes The Driving Seat

As teachers have limited possibilities to teach their students, teaching will actually be very much about assessment – formative assessment that is. Formative assessment refers to an ongoing, qualitative feedback between student and teacher and it also has aspects of peer assessment. Summative assessment measures students’ understanding of a given subject and is usually graded. Many school systems emphasise summative assessment.

“Even adults can find self-study hard. Now it is time to find a balance between formative and summative assessment. Formative assessment can be done continuously, but I would advise to be more careful with summative assessment. It could be cut up and done in smaller segments,” Dr. Wallinheimo advises.

1. Self-regulation is hard
The situation we are facing in teaching, requires amazing self-regulation skills from students. Children are spending their time on studying, often with exactly the same technology they use to play videogames, communicate with their friends or watch Netflix. We adults know how tempting it is to catch up with social media when we actually should be working, so one can only imagine what sort of challenges children are experiencing. But this is also a great time to learn about students’ self-regulation skills, and then to develop them through formative assessment.

2. Students may surprise teachers
Even in an inclusive class, there tends to be a number of students, who have special needs. Some students need more assistance with their reading skills, some have trouble in their capacity to concentrate but others, for example those with hyper-sensitivity issues, may find it actually quite relaxing to study remotely. Digital learning and assessment actually does make it possible to differentiate learning experience very effectively, and teachers should be ready to learn new aspects about their students.

3. Parents are not Teachers
We all knew that digital learning is a thing of the future and we should be prepared for it, but most likely none of us thought that we might be forced into it in a matter of weeks because of a global pandemic. While parents definitely should be there for their children to ease children’s experience of studying in isolation, parents should not worry too much about learning outcomes. Once the situation stabilises, teachers will help the students catch up with learning. “Parents should also accept that their children might not want their advice on the same scale that they are ready to listen to their teacher,” Dr. Wallinheimo reminds us.

4. The future is here
It is a bit of a cliché, but a crisis really is also an opportunity. Learning and teaching will not return to “normal” after the coronavirus pandemic is over, but things have changed for good. Teachers would be wise to use this time to learn about digital possibilities in teaching and assessment and brush up on their skills.This is a time to be brave and try new techniques and innovations with an open mind. “Many teachers are now seeing opportunity in technology even when they might have had a somewhat negative attitude towards it before”, Dr. Wallinheimo says.

5. Go easy with summative assessment
This is not a great time to do strict, summative assessment. Many children are experiencing pressure in their daily life, families are trying to figure out how to adapt to this new situation and teachers are testing new ways to teach. We all should have mercy on ourselves and concentrate on what we can do well with the technology we have in our hands in our present situation. It could very well be that learning through play and fun has never been more true. “With some students, especially with many in their teens, the main job is to try to keep up their motivation to study,” Dr. Wallinheimo says.

Kirsi Wallinheimo (PhD (Education), MA )

Kirsi Wallinheimo is a University Lecturer in foreign language education at University of Helsinki since 2003. Her pedagogical and research interests include the implementation of digital learning environments in teaching and learning, playful approach to learning and digital online assessment. She is involved in many international networks and projects, especially within the European countries. Current projects are e.g ECML-project (Digital literacy for the teaching and learning languages), Virtual classroom simulation project and designing adaptive assessment for digital games. She is also a member of The Finnish Matriculation Examination Board.
Further details: https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/fi/persons/kirsi-wallinheimo