"Thoughts on Media and more on Assessments"

Shawn Atwood
Foundations of Instructional Design

“Assessments and Media”

This past week as I have taught my classes at the Lone Peak seminary as well as been instructed here at the University of Utah, I have experienced the highs and lows of being a teacher as well as being a student. I have noticed the flaws in the instructional design of myself as well as other teachers. A few weeks ago we discussed in class the importance of assessments. It is a true statement that assessments are important. I think that they help show the teacher whether or not the student understands the concepts at hand and they also show the teacher how well they have done in their instruction. However, I strongly feel that although assessments are a method of checking for student understanding, it is not the only method. I will use myself as an example. Personally, I am simply not a good “test taker.” I can know the material forward and backward, I can explain it to other people, and I can easily find concepts in the chapters and articles if I am asked to do so. But I am not a good “test taker.” I believe that all formal assessments do is assess one’s ability as to how well they can take tests. There simply needs to be others sets of evaluations.
Regarding this week’s reading, I strongly believe that media can and should play an important role in instruction design. Whenever there is an element in the class that can appeal to more than one of the senses, the learner will have more success remembering the content. However, just as I mentioned above with assessments, media should be a type of instruction, but it should not be the only type. It can be overly used as well. It is a type of variety to help establish the readiness of the learner and if used properly can greatly enhance the learner’s ability to understand a given concept.