E-Learning Assessment--The Search for the Emerald Key--Part III--Scenarios and the Nature of the Event

The Nature of the Assessment Event

The assessment event that the teams are going to enter into through the portal is made up of two scenarios that incorporate the ideas of problem based learning linked to an emphasis on the high end thinking skills as described by Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. The nature of the collaboration that occurs among the three member team will be the focus of the first scenario. It is also important to point out the special roles that the assessment team and the educator have in this event. 

The assessment team has already been described in a previous post. They will be able to see, read and hear (if audio is implemented in the event) everything that is happening during the event much like an invisible audience. They will be gathering data on how well challenging tasks are analyzed by the student teams, the collaborative reasoning going on and creative solutions to the tasks encountered. Each assessor will be able to offer his or her perspective on student performance based upon the perspective of their own discipline. This happens with the understanding that when we are confronted with solving a problem, we need cross disciplinary skill sets to analyze the problem and arrive at a viable solution.

Scenario #1

Credit:www.tevisthompson.com

The first scenario involves a journey in which effective collaboration is the key to success. In fact it is stated in instructions to students that it is imperative that all three team members make it through the assessment event together in the time allotted. For a team member not to make it through has an effect on the collaborative score in the assessment event. 

The role of the teacher in the event is unusual. When the students come through the portal, the teacher is there to give preliminary instructions and point them to their wearable technology devices. These will be explained in the walk through part in a future post. After that preliminary appearance, the educator disappears from the scene. The team can call up the educator only three times during the event in which he or she appears before them. The team can call him or her up but the educator will not give them answers to anything that is happening. His or her role when called upon is to ask the team questions with the goal of helping them clarify their reasoning during challenges. When he or she appears, it is the team's responsibility to keep track of time and to dismiss him or her when they feel the need to continue.

The first goal as a collaborative group is to gather information from the environment in the form of artifacts or objects that they come across and are able to examine.

Next....Description of Artifacts  and Nature of the Second Scenario(a short post before the walk through)