Presenting at ISTE Live 2022

This past June, 9th-grade students Chloe Culver and Rayna Srinivas had an amazing opportunity to represent Renton Prep at ISTE Live 2022 alongside executive director Dr. Michelle Zimmerman. The presentation was titled “No Cheating! Nontraditional Assessment With No Proctor Needed” and it focused on how educators can perform assessments without the need for a proctor by using Renton Prep as an example.

This is the 12th time that we’ve presented at the International Society for Technology in Education. This great event allows educators from around the world to collaborate and adopt new strategies, activities, and research-based practices that can reform how they approach their profession. By sharing their experiences and findings, participants are exposed to new teachings that can inspire and motivate them for the new school year.

Assessing Students Without a Proctor

Redefine Your Competency Standards

Chloe, Rayna, and Dr. Michelle Zimmerman explored how Renton Prep can accurately perform student assessments without needing a proctor through our unique competency standards. These standards use various assessment techniques to help monitor student progress, including two semester evaluations, consisting of both a teacher evaluation and a student self-assessment.

We understand that students are able to demonstrate their knowledge in more than one way, and that’s why we use Edmentum to help provide individualized learning and tiered intervention strategies to help monitor student progress within core subjects.

Integrate Non-Traditional Learning Methods

Our curriculum incorporates more hands-on learning activities than traditional learning, which provides a more accurate representation of a student’s subject comprehension. 

A non-traditional project includes several steps before even starting. These projects typically start with an idea and blueprint stage that might involve the use of either 3D or 2D models, and then the building process stage. Throughout this process, students are advised to familiarize themselves with the assignment rubric.

We design our rubrics specifically to detail what we expect and to help guide students in crafting their finished product in a way that aligns with our competency standards. We also involve students in the project and criteria design process, getting their input so they feel they have ownership in the final artifact. Finally, we use our point-based rubric and in-depth feedback to give students an opportunity to demonstrate what they’ve learned so they can continue to grow.

It’s through this combination that students can thrive and educators can worry less about cheating, even in remote scenarios.

Technology Driven Education

ISTE Live gave us the perfect chance to showcase the technology used at Renton Prep throughout the school year. With Prezi, we can add digital backdrops to our presentations, spicing things up for viewers and for the presenter themselves. Prezi can bring storyboarding and scale to life with the help of the cyclorama.

Microsoft Teams has also made digital meetings much easier. Microsoft Teams creates a place to meet, collaborate, and share files, assignments, and calendars, making it ideal for virtual education. More recently, it has helped us with the facilitation of our annual spring performance, in which our students choreograph a dance that shows what they’ve learned throughout the year.

Equipping our Students for Success at Renton Prep

ISTE Live was a great opportunity for Chloe and Rayna to represent our student-focused curriculum at Renton Prep. The technology we were able to display at the conference shows the amazing capabilities that are at our fingertips. Technology changes the way a student receives information, but it’s our process here at Renton Prep, which combines technology with a strong teaching standard, that equips our students with the skills they need to succeed.

If you have any questions on how Renton Prep enhances education for students, don’t hesitate to contact us today.