Internal Elements and Factors...

...that made screencasting as a qualitative formative assessment tool successful. Though some of things may seem obvious, I'm proud to say that these findings are actually research-based. I'll share external elements and factors in a separate post, and a third category of findings about teacher's changed beliefs on formative assessment when using screencasting with students.

Unprompted Self-Assessment

This is the most exciting finding for me. Students who were engaged in the process of creating screencast representations of understanding played back recordings, listened to and watched themselves, and made revisions and adjustments without the teachers ever prompting them to engage in this reflective and revisionary task.

Guided Independent Work

When students were planning, designing, recording, or listening to their screencast artifacts, the teachers were free to move about the classrooms or workspaces, and check in and provide individual guidance for every student. Some students needed more face-to-face time than others, but the media artifacts allowed the teacher to see where all student were, regardless of having a face-to-face check in or not in a given class.

Diminishing Novelty, Continued Engagement

The use of any screenacsting software and hardware brings a certain amount of novelty to any learning environment. However, when students were using the technology over a extended period of time (2-3) weeks, the novelty diminished but the observable engagement and enthusiasm did not. The teachers gave students authentic tasks and timely feedback, and they also permitted students to vary how they used the tool for their work.

Desire to Make it Work

This probably falls the most under the category of 'Obviously,' but in all of the cases the participating teachers' professionalism, constructivist learning tendencies, and genuine care for the students played a role in making screencasting a formative assessment tool.