Can Technology Transform Teaching Practice and Student Learning?
There is much yet to be learned about exemplary computer-using teachers. Perhaps the most important need is to develop a valid and reliable measure of exemplary practice using computers –one that is based on the actual effects that exposure to such teachers has on students’ competencies. In this, the critical problem is that our range of reliable assessments of student competency is so narrow and distorted. We have plenty of standardized tests of basic skills; however, there is no instrument that I am aware of, that can be reliably used to show whether or not students have gained complex competencies in writing, critical thinking, and problem-solving as a result of having had instruction by one teacher or another. (However, see Becker and Lovitts, 2000, for a proposed model for project-based assessment aimed at filling in this gap in our assessment knowledge.) Thus, “exemplariness” remains a subjective judgment that depends on public articulation and justification of the standards used