Blended and online courses offer so many opportunities for authentic assessment and creative teaching and learning, there is a tendency to speak only in these terms when promoting these types of courses. There is a danger in avoiding traditional testing in blended or fully online courses, however.
Our students are assessed throughout their student career using multiple-choice tests mandated by the State of Michigan, including the ACT-MME test given to juniors each spring. Our schools are judged publicly, through the publication of these results by our parents, by our communities at large, and by our polititicans.
Students must be given the opportunity to participate in traditional modes of testing if only to keep in practice and to develop test-taking strategies. Our students and our schools must meet Annual Yearly Progress, after all.
Blended course teachers must plan accordingly and provide adequate opportunities for multiple-choice testing throughout the year, even if it seems to fly in the face of the philosophies that support teaching and learning in blended classrooms.
Due to the student-centered nature of blended classrooms, curriculum that is interdisciplinary can be highly effective. Allowing students to make connections between the disciplines craetes more interested and more motivated learners, especially when the disciplines they connect to are self-selected.
But we must not forget the requirements placed on our students outside our classroom. The King is Dead! Long Live the King!
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