Introduction
With the expansion of new technology
resources today comes more opportunities to measure results for both students
and instructors. Assessments continue to gauge learning outcomes and provide
opportunities for redirection where needed. In education and in business the
integration of more interactive tools allows participants to use reflection,
inquiry and critical thinking skills to help them assess their prior knowledge
and understanding as they progress along. Instructors and administrators can
tap into vital information on trends progress, learning styles and gauge
content with comprehension. Effective assessments offer an imperative way to
help participants improve skills and knowledge.
This paper will re-introduce a prior activity for a leading business
organization to incorporate the integration of technology as a resource to
facilitate effective assessment and evaluation. The use of new assessment tools
along with the reasoning for enhancing the evaluation and the theories of the
project will also be discussed.
Prior
Assignment
My original
assignment was to prepare a needs assessment and program evaluation proposal to
integrate technology and enhance services provided to members of the Chamber of
Commerce. The proposal outlines the ways that technology will be used to
evaluate staff and programs and to streamline practices and integrate new tools
to promote member businesses.
This project
identified needs to be met based on dropped member statistics member survey
results and on an analysis conducted by an independent marketing team. There
was no attempt to use self-assessments or evaluations of individual business
leaders as to where they are now or their expected outcomes to grow their
businesses. Using different methods to illustrate the retaining of prior
business knowledge or the reflection of how their business plan, mission
statement etc. was working might have provided revealing opportunities for both
members and the Chamber official reworded their programming.
Redesign
Just as learners
in a traditional classroom need to be assessed more individually so too do
members of the business community. There are different member businesses that
have different training, promotional and advocacy needs. One size definitely
does not fit all. By providing a self-assessment, member businesses can reflect
on what they have learned throughout their business, what they know, or don’t
know, value or can take away (Bedard-Voorhees, Johnson, Dobson 2007).
The Small Business
Administration offers a digital needs assessment to potential business leaders
and additional self-assessments for ongoing business development. The
assessment offers tool to gain greater insight as to business type needs. The
online self-assessment tool for businesses, individuals and organizations will
be incorporated as part of the Chamber’s overall needs strategy. By providing the self- assessment more
reflective qualities will come to
the surface. Self-Assessments identify strengths and weaknesses and create the
foundation for improvement (Blanchard 2012).
Learning
technologies from multimedia simulations, interactive games, discussion boards,
Wiki’s, blogs and web conferencing are stimulating more reflective analysis and
encouraging peer to peer evaluations. Designing more inquiry driven curriculum or
programming along with telling assessments that collect, analyze and report
performance data, educators and business organizations can continue to enhance outcomes
and guide deliberate programming. As businesses like the Chamber of Commerce
learn more from data analysis they can recommend evaluation strategies for
improving the use of technology resources for learning, communication, and business
and employee productivity.
Theories and
Principles
The
Constructivism theory best represents the goals of using technology resources
to facilitate effective assessment and evaluation. This approach offers the imperative
parts of learning described as an active process of constructing rather than
acquiring knowledge. Business leaders need to add to their prior knowledge
using technology and resources provided through organizations like the Chamber
of Commerce. Through the use of interactive technologies, today’s learners
arrive at their destination through a thought provoking journey of analysis,
reflection and deduction (Dabbaugh, 2006). Piaget’s theory of cognitive
development gave way to what most educational technologists adhere to today
which supports Constructivism.
According to Dabbagh the belief is that
instructors should not to impose steps, procedures, and rigid structure, but
rather to be the architectures for learning.
Instructional
models include discovery learning, action learning, authentic learning and
inquiry learning. These are just some of the models under the Constructivism
theory that support the use of new technologies for learning and improving (Dabbagh,
2006).
Bedard-Voorhees, A., Johnson, L.M., & Dobson, P. (2011).
Letting them show what they
know: Digital assessment strategies
[Book Submission Chapter Final Version]. In
S. Hirtz and K. Kelly (Eds.)
Education for a Digital World 2.0, Section F:
eAssessment: Measuring in Ways that
Matter. British Columbia: Province of
British Columbia.
Clark, R. (2003). Building expertise: Cognitive methods for
training and performance
improvement (2nd ed.). Silver
Spring: International Society for Performance
Improvement.
Dabbagh, N. (2006). Instructional design knowledge base.
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