teaching naked: technology for assessment

I have difficulties with this chapter. Not that I think Bowen is wrong asserting that technology can be used to deliver frequent low-stakes assessments. My difficulty is retooling my assessments so that the questions actually assess student ability or mastery of the material rather than their ability to search the answer via Google. It is a difficult issue for me because most of what I teach is very content heavy: biochemistry and molecular cell biology. So there is a much material to simply know. But to engage students in higher-order thinking, the assessments (whether formative or summative) must include judgement and analysis. For example, it is difficult to develop a question that assesses a 2nd-year student's ability to judge which catalytic mechanism makes more sense according to biochemical logic. However, I do appreciate Bowen's example of the TCA cycle in which the question asks students to assess the result of a particular enzyme deficiency or the consequences of recycling a particular substrate. These are less Googleable but they do take time to develop. In addition, online testing in today's environment must assume that the internet is being used to search for answers. Bowen's advice is to make the tests time-limited. This I do, but students certainly complain that it increases their stress level. I suspect they are stressed because they are not yet comfortable with the material and as a result still wish to rely on the security of their notes, textbook, and Google. But of course, Bowen (and I) wish to limit students' ability to access these resources to encourage students to actually attend to the material. Students need feedback on how well they are mastering the material. Googling answers does assess mastery. I do not think that there is a balance that will ever satisfy everyone.

Resources

Bowen, J. A. (2012). Technology for assessment. In Teaching naked: How moving technology out of your classroom will improve student learning, Chapter 7. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, an imprint of Wiley. p 153-184.