Ped II, but with connections to Web II

Blogs can be used as a formative assessment even with high school students provided you give them something to react to in their blog. I tried this with a first class discussion similar to our discussions, but found that unless I asked them for some a reaction to something specific, I did not get a lot of good quality, thoughtful responses.

This speaks to the problem of formulating quality assessments - either summative or formative. I think that it's very difficulty to come up with assessments that really allow all students to showcase their knowledge, that get students to use their learning in some kind of authentic process, that don't take so much time that you can't move on to the next topic, and that lead back to your goals and objectives. Hmmm... I thought just doing a project or a paper or an presentation was enough and that if I simply varied the type of assessment it would make the class more interesting and speak to different learning styles. But now I think there is more to this assessment thing. Do I want students to demonstrate what I think they have learned? Do I want them to demonstrate in the fashion that I create for them only? If I allow them to have some say in the creation of summative assessments, will I really know what they have and have not learned, or will I only know what they choose to show me? Lots to think about.