Teaching Naked: Game-Based Assessment Design
Objective
The
first three chapters of Teaching Naked look at global competition, social proximity,
and games and customization in an attempt to show the need for higher education
to match the technological endeavors being supported by others. Some of the most salient points made by Jose
Bowen (2012) in favour of online learning include 29.3% of college students
taking at least one online and students are willing to go into debt for this convenience
of online learning (3 and 13). To continue, he explains that “as will
traditional classroom instruction, the quality of online courses is uneven, but,
at its best, interactive technology
provides not only content, but practical and individual feedback that can be
difficult to administer in a typical classroom environment” (5), which supports
one of the many advantages of online learning. He then argues that classrooms
need to be adjusted to emphasize content less and apply the material to new
contexts more (21). This adjustment has begun in certain contexts; for example,
Telehealth and Assisted Learning modules (CETAL, 2016), but needs more
extensive acceptance. The reality is that the digital age has made time for
reflection and interaction suffer and the objective of higher-education should be
to reclaim this (27); as a result, students expect learning to be instantaneous
and lack the patience it takes to explore the depths of learning. The idea of
customizing almost everything in the world has begun to migrate into education.
Higher education, as Bowen states, has “shifted its focus from the professor to
the students, and from knowledge given to knowledge created” (51). One of his
strongest supporting arguments of digital learning is that students have more
control over what they learn, and how they learn it, with the teacher as
facilitator, not expert. We are bound to see an evolution in education towards
collaboration and connectedness.
Reflective
As
an administrator, I encourage teachers to see technology as an effective
teaching tool for English language learners, while at the same time
demonstrating that the boundaries of this can be overcome. Bowen (2012)
referenced a point made by others that “teachers have been asked for years to
connect with different auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners in their
classroom, but they are rarely able to do it well (Kolb and Kolb, 2005, Lachenmayer,
1997, 53) and I believe that this can more easily be achieved using computers
and technology. My mind began running through all the
potential opportunities for learning outside the boundaries of the classroom,
through Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and Technology-Enhanced
Language Learning (TELL) that I could implement in the school I currently work
for to encourage both application of learning and time for reflection. The
frustrating reality of this is that as much as I can see opportunity, it is
overshadowed by boundaries from the institution, the teachers, and the
students.
Interpretive
Computer-Assisted Language
Learning (CALL) has played an important role in education since the 1960s. The
benefits of CALL include experiential learning, motivation, enhanced student
achievement, authentic materials for study, greater interaction,
individualization, independence from a single source of information, and global
understanding (Lee). CALL activities signify an interruption from daily classroom
routines and allow learners to work/reflect at their own pace. By integrating learning content and
objectives into both online and face-to-face modes teachers can expose learners
to the culture of real-world communication, adding socio-linguistic authenticity
to pedagogic classroom materials. Through the use of the internet, teachers can more
effectively promote co-operative learning, incorporate various learning
styles/strategies, use customizable and game-based course design offering
limitless possibilities of customization (Bowen, 63), and enable students to
become self-directed learners. More specifically, an English
for Academic Purposes (EAP) course can be an intellectual site of inquiry that
helps understand and refine not just what language to use (competence), but
also how and when to produce it (performance) to gain membership into their
specific discourse communities (Chau and Lee, 2014). However, to accompany the
noted benefits of integrating technology and using it as a means to improve the
student experience are barriers, which include financing, the availability of hardware
and software, lack of technological knowledge by students and staff, and the acceptance
of change by institutions (Lee).
Decisional
While
many language educators hesitate to introduce new technologies into their
curriculum, the learning opportunities afforded by blended learning are simply
too great to ignore. Administrators can address this shift by providing
students with access to new technology via classroom computers, class-sets of
tablets, smartboards, projectors, and computer labs. Teachers can also utilize
student smartphones, social media, and applications in their lesson planning
and homework. Class blogs, Facebook pages, Skype
partners, Twitter, and LMS like Moodle (Bowen 34-42) are just some of the ways
teachers can create online learning communities, self-study opportunities, and
reflective possibilities for their students. I intend to develop professional
development seminars for teachers in in the area of game-based assessment
design. Game-based learning and assessment is more than just selecting the
right game for a particular classroom. It's about designing a meaningful
learning experience for students, and realizing that assessment happens around
a game more often than it happens inside the game (Rufo
Tepper, (2015). I want to use technology to demonstrate to teachers in general
English, EAP, and college level classes how to provide authentic, useful
assessment tasks for students that also use technology. An example of this is a
menu of learning activities suggested as a student engagement technique by
Elizabeth Barkley in her handbook for college faculty (2010, 47). By
continuously adapting these techniques, educators can prepare learners for success
in an ever-changing era of fast, information-rich communication.
Bibliography
Bowen, J.A. (2012). Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
CETAL (February 26, 2016). An overview: Introducing Telecare and
Telehealth E learning Course https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/overview-introducing-telecare-telehealth-e-learning
Chau, Juliana
and Alfred Lee, (2014). Technology-enhanced Language Learning (TeLL): An Update
and a Principled Framework for English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
Courses. Canadian Journal of Learning
and Technology. 40(1). http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/799/389
Lee, Kuang-wu
(December 2000). English Teachers'
Barriers to the Use of Computer-Assisted Language Learning. The Internet TESL Journal, VI(12). http://iteslj.org/Articles/Lee-CALLbarriers.html
Rufo
Tepper, Rebecca (June 17, 2015). Using
Games for Assessment. Game-Based Learning. Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org/blog/using-games-for-assessment-rebecca-rufo-tepper
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