Evaluating the effectiveness of new technology
It is imperative that we, as educators, reflect on our instruction and evaluate the positives and negatives of introducing new material, delivery or technology. How will I know if the addition of this technology has been effective? I have been teaching this course with the same scope and sequence since 2006 and will continue to teach it in the same manner to use the data from previous years as a baseline. I will then compare this year’s student performance on assessments, midterm and final exams, as well as overall grades to measure effectiveness. Understanding that classes have different levels of abilities from year to year I will gather all of the data from previous years and create an average over those years. Thus the baseline data would be a larger sample size and the comparison will be more accurate. I will also use the information I obtain from a unit to unit basis so I continue to improve my use of this technology. Secondly, I will also use comparison data between my class and the other biology classes that are not using interactive whiteboards, knowing that we share the same instructional material and use common assessments. Through the additional resources and formative assessments I will be able to identify positives and weaknesses of the use of the interactive whiteboard and address them as necessary. This comparison provides me the ability to assess how our students are directly influenced by the interactive whiteboard technology. The biology teachers in my school collaborate daily so this method of evaluation will be subjective but at least it will give me an idea if the whiteboard technology is affective. Lastly, I will provide students with a survey after each unit that assesses their feelings about their growth because the technology. Although this is not a true indicator of the technology’s performance it does provide me with an idea of how the students believe their learning is affected. Their feedback will allow for mid-year adjustments to improve my implementation of the technology along with maintaining what is working.
Upon gathering all of the necessary data I will then do a comprehensive reflection to identify how effective I was with the implementation of the technology based upon the percentage of students who were deemed below proficient this as compared to the previous years’ average. This will provide me with the true data I need to prove the whiteboard technology has improved our students’ ability to transfer their understanding over the entire length of the course.
Upon gathering all of the necessary data I will then do a comprehensive reflection to identify how effective I was with the implementation of the technology based upon the percentage of students who were deemed below proficient this as compared to the previous years’ average. This will provide me with the true data I need to prove the whiteboard technology has improved our students’ ability to transfer their understanding over the entire length of the course.
