Standard+8

Assessment using Voicethread **Standard 8**: Teachers know how to test for student progress.  The teacher understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the pupil.

**Evidence 1**: Using Voicethread as an Assessment Tool

Here is a Voicethread our students made for a virtual field trip. They needed to showcase a location somewhere in the world. media type="custom" key="19123006"

 Here is the Voicethread on Adjectives

media type="custom" key="9478370" **Rationale 1**: In the first example, our class created a virtual field trip in which each student researched and then presented a place of interest somewhere in the world. In the second example, after teaching an introduction to adjectives, 5th grade students were asked to show their knowledge of adjectives. Students were asked to view different photos and needed to give at least two adjectives that fit with each photo in some way. When working on a Voicethread, students are able to choose between text, audio voice recording using a microphone, or video.

Using Voicethread as an educator helped me to develop a unique assessment tool that easily showed me which students had good communication skills for the virtual field trip or a strong understanding of adjectives in the second example. This tool also allowed the students to view their classmates’ understanding of a concept. For the most part students had acquired a reasonable understanding of adjectives, but some lacked a well rounded vocabulary and used very simplistic words for adjectives.


 * KSD **

8.K.2 The teacher knows how to select, construct, and use assessment strategies and instruments appropriate to the learning outcomes being evaluated and to other diagnostic purposes. //Using a Voicethread to view a photo and comment on that photo was the perfect way to demonstrate understanding of the concept. Voicethreads can also be used to show knowledge gained through the uploading of student created pictures or photos.//

8.S.6 The teacher maintains useful records of student work and performance and can communicate student progress knowledgeably and responsibly, based on appropriate indicators, to students, parents, and other colleagues. //A Voicethread is stored in the cloud forever in a Voicethread account. If a person wanted to show growth over time, they could use the Voicethread and have a record of improvement in students’ knowledge and skill.//

8.D.2 The teacher is committed to using assessment to identify student strengths and promote student growth rather than to deny students access to learning opportunities. //Some students had a difficult time using creative adjectives or spelling their adjectives correctly. I did not correct student work nor did I delete any words that were misspelled. All students were able to complete the Voicethread to the best of their abilities.//