Standard III - Assessing/Evaluating

Artifact Description:

In the Fall of 2020, in my capacity as the instructor for the EDLT 401 Instructional Technology IV course for undergraduate students who were preservice teachers at Duquesne University, I created multiple surveys to collect data for informing my decisions to improve the instructions and learning achievement of students. The course objective is to prepare undergraduate students who were preservice teachers in the School of Education to implement emerging instructional technology in K-12 classrooms. I adopted the TPACK survey (Schmidt et al., 2009) which is a research-based instrument at the beginning of the course to assess students’ knowledge in the TPACK framework. The TPACK survey included questions about Technology Knowledge (TK), Content Knowledge (CK), Pedagogy Knowledge (PK), Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). Padlet was used as a means of formative assessment strategy for students to express their thoughts on the topics such as TPACK. In addition, I generated several Google Form surveys as exit tickets to collect feedback from students about instructions and learning experiences.

​

Reflection and Rationale:

After collecting all of the responses, I analyzed the data from the TPACK survey and Google Form surveys to inform decisions to improve instructions and the learning environment. The survey analysis was used to understand the characteristics of students such as their knowledge in the content area, educational pedagogy, and instructional technology. Due to the rapid technology advancement, the ability to integrate technology into K-12 education has become increasingly important for preservice teachers. However, the results of the TPACK survey showed that students had lower self-report scores in the TK compared to CK and PK. The preservice teachers' relatively low score in the self-reporting survey indicated that they may need more scaffolding in learning the instructional technology. To improve students' learning outcomes, I made the instructions more learner-friendly by including interactional activities, break-out discussions, and peer learning, etc. Additionally, I generated several surveys using Google Form as exit tickets at the end of each meeting to gather feedback about the asynchronous learning modules and synchronous meetings. I was able to adjust my instructions and improve the learning environment based on the students’ feedbacks and needs. Therefore, this artifact demonstrated my ability to use multiple assessment strategies to collect data for informing decisions to improve instructional practice, learner outcomes, and the learning environment.

​

​

Reference: 

Schmidt, D. A., Baran, E., Thompson A. D., Koehler, M. J., Mishra, P. & Shin, T. (2009-10). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK): The Development and Validation of an Assessment Instrument for Preservice Teachers. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 42(2), 123-149.