Chapter 4: The students completed their DST, now what do I do?

"In many ways, assessment is a pivotal point in the education process" (Ohler, Kindle edition, 942 of 2900) is the first statement of this chapter on assessing digital stories. I believe this is true because in order to justify the time and energy spent creating DST, teachers need to be able to clearly explain their assessment strategies and its impact on student learning. 

Throughout my seven years in the classroom, the area that I struggled with most in terms of assessment was definitely writing.  With writing there was no absolute clear answer (such as in many areas of math, science, reading comprehension, etc.)  Although I would always create a clear rubric and share it with students prior to their task or assignment, it was the most time consuming of all grading I encountered.  DST is similar in nature in that there is no "correct answer" and the goals must be laid out clearly before students begin their projects.  The author suggests assessing the story, all the artifacts and written work, the planning and process, media grammar, understanding and presentation of content, teamwork, and performance.  One of the ideas that I agree strongly with is to have the students self-assess their own projects.  I used this form of self-assessment in my 5th grade class when students were working on their State Reports.  In this case, I had a rubric set up and they would assess their content, grammar, etc. and determine if they were ready to submit the assignment.  After reading this chapter, I would add a section with open ended questions for them to reflect on the process they had just completed.  Students enjoyed evaluating their own work and it helped them to understand that I wasn't giving them a grade, they were earning it based on the amount of work they had put in and meeting expectations of the assignment.  I also believe that the author's approach of keeping the rubric length manageable is especially important.  Focusing on the most important objectives will improve the likelihood of overall success in this project as well as decrease the chance of giving up after one try.