Another Word of the Day - psychometric

"Psychometrics is a field in which practitioners attempt to measure psychological response like emotion, intelligence, or other mental-based abilities, of individuals. An individual’s test results are then compared to an average group’s performance in these areas. A key example is the typical IQ test, which measures intelligence quotient. The test score you receive on an IQ test is compared to the body of people who have taken the test previously, and a number is assigned (the score) as your IQ number. Theoretically, a higher number IQ translates to greater intelligence."

The above definition taken from Wisegeek.com

Word of the Day - rubric

"A rubric is an authentic assessment tool used to measure students' work. It is a scoring guide that seeks to evaluate a student's performance based on the sum of a full range of criteria rather than a single numerical score. A rubric is a working guide for students and teachers, usually handed out before the assignment begins in order to get students to think about the criteria on which their work will be judged. Rubrics can be analytic or holistic, and they can be created for any content area including math, science, history, writing, foreign languages, drama, art, music, etc...

The rubric is one authentic assessment tool which is designed to simulate real life activity where students are engaged in solving real-life problems. It is a formative type of assessment because it becomes an ongoing part of the whole teaching and learning process. Students themselves are involved in the assessment process through both peer and self-assessment. As students become familiar with rubrics, they can assist in the rubric design process. This involvement empowers the students and as a result, their learning becomes more focused and self-directed. Authentic assessment, therefore, blurs the lines between teaching, learning, and assessment (Pickette and Dodge)."

This definition comes from the Kessesaw State University website. Check out the link to learn much more about rubrics.

Teacher Evaluation and Assessment

I just read an interesting article about the teacher evaluation and assessment process. Being involved in the business of providing OMR teacher evaluation forms for educational institutions and associations, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be on the receiving end of such an evaluation. Judging by some of the comments I have read on Twitter, (using #scantron as search criteria) it sounds like students use the process to punish teachers. This would be a powerful tool to 'out' really bad teachers, but the question of objective fairness comes to mind and I'm sure teachers and speakers feel some concern about the evaluation process. I'd be curious to hear your experiences.

In the afore mentioned article "Teacher Evaluation & Assessment", educational experts, Anthony Cody and David B. Cohen answer questions about teacher avaluation and assesment. You may find this helpful in administrating your evaluation process. Read it here. Please feel free to return here and leave comments about your concerns regarding the evaluation process.

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ScanTRON

I ran across this on YouTube and just had to post it here. Rick did a great job with this animation. I know you'll enjoy this,...if you're old enough to remember the Disney movie, TRON. It's nice to see someone make something interesting and fun out of something that usually seems quite boring. Hey, this is what we do! Design, print, scan and collect very important data from these forms. I think it's fun...don't you? ;-)

Leave your comments.

Birds of a Feather Flock Together - Cool Benefits of Twitter

We can all find others with similar interests as ourselves. We just need to ask the right questions. The problem comes in finding where others gather and then to find the ones actually listening.

I have been hearing a lot of buzz lately about the benefits of Twitter, a new technology for sharing short(140 characters or less)comments(tweets). Twitter is growing exponentially. For example, in the last seven days there have been close to 2 million tweets posted to the Twitter cloud. These tweets express the momentary interests of the twitters tweeting. Some are silly. Some of them are expressions of frustration or requests for assistance. Many are short reviews of products and services including short URL links to blogs or company websites.

By using advanced twitter search criteria, you can filter these tweets to display only those that contain words related to your particular interest. This is exactly what a lot of companies are doing. They use specific search keywords to effectively listen for specific tweets that include their company name or products. Then they respond directly to these tweeters with an introduction to begin a new client relationship and offer assistance.

This very thing just happened to me today when I posted that I had sent out an email newsletter using Constant Contact. Within 3 minutes I had received a reply to my tweet from none other than Constant Contact informing me that they noticed I was using their product and offering me any assistance I may need via Twitter. How cool is that?

Since discovering this new paradigm for relationship building around a common interest, I have been creating twitter feeds based on what I do in the OMR and web survey business and adding these feeds to my Google reader so I can easily follow anyone who tweets based on keywords that apply to our business. When I see relevant posts, I can respond by offering our company's assistance in areas of form design, or printing, etc.

If you happen to be on Twitter and have any related interest in web and OMR form design, printing, scanning and reporting, please follow me. My Twitter username is bubblepeeps. I will follow you back. It would be beneficial for us to form a flock around the topic of OMR Scantron type forms and processes. I will be looking forward to seeing you on Twitter soon!