Assessment

Assessment is the process of acquiring information and making judgments about student learning. There are several purposes of assessment such as to assist in student learning, to identify the child’s strengths and weaknesses, to assess the effectiveness of a particular strategy, to assess and improve the effectiveness of curricular programs, to asses and improve teaching effectiveness, and to provide data to communicate with parent’s about a child’s progress. Assessments are not only used to see if a student is understanding the concepts taught it also is valuable for the teacher to see how effective their teaching was and if not how to improve their teaching so that all student’s can grasp what is being taught to them.
Types of Assessments:
There are several types of assessment. Formative assessment provides continuous feedback to teachers and students, which enables them to monitor progress and identify and address errors and gaps in learning. Summative assessment is a larger test given at the end of the unit. Formal assessment is structured and recorded assessment. Teachers and students use informal assessment opportunities to make incidental and immediate judgments and provide feedback about student learning. Peer-assessment occurs when students provide feedback to other learners about their learning. In this course, we have used peer assessment. We give feedback on other group’s presentations by leaving comments on their blogs and wikis. Self-assessment occurs when the learner assesses her or his own work. We have also self assessed ourselves as we blog and reflect on what we have learned. Another type of assessment is authentic assessments, which are based on teacher observations of children as they are engaged in real meaningful classroom events. Some examples of this are students writing in a journal and power point presentations. Another type of assessment is traditional assessments, which focus on grades, and helps to rank knowledge through the classroom. Some types of traditional testing are teacher made quizzes, exams and homework assignments. I think that this type of testing is good to see if student’s grasped basic knowledge and it is good to evaluate the lower levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Norm referenced assessments are formal assessments based on the scores of a particular group of students. One type of norm referenced is the SAT’s in which most high school students take. I don’t personally like this type of testing because some student’s do not do well in taking tests and this testing does not show their strengths in their knowledge. Criterion referenced tests is another type of formal assessments comparing the child’s performances to criteria. One example of this type of testing is the ELA exams that students take in the 4th grade. I have observed this type of assessment in a fourth grade classroom getting ready for the ELA exam. The teacher used ELA exams from previous years for the students to use as practice. The teacher worked on specific skills such as the reading the passages and the multiple choice questions that went along with the passage. I don’t believe that this type of assessment shows what students know. The teachers prepare them just for this test and this is not help the students in learning new cognitive skills. Most teachers have them memorize answers. Alternative assessments are a different way of assessing students other than the traditional authentic such as exams in portfolio. Portfolios are also used as a type of assessment. It is a collection of student’s work during the school year such as written, work, journals, self evaluations, and other samples of the students work. While I did fieldwork at Temple Hill Academy I worked with two students and we kept a portfolio of their work. I read with the student’s and then they would do various activities to go along with the book we read, such as responding to their opinion of the book, working on characterizing the main characters of the story, samples of their drawings and so on. This is a good way of evaluating student’s so you can see what they need work on and see how they have progressed over time.
I think that it is important to vary the types of assessments used in the classroom. Some students might do well on one type of assessment or do poorly on a different type of assessment. Teacher’s need to use different types of assessment to help them find the student’s strengths and weaknesses, by using only one type of assessment you cannot find out this information.
YouTube Video: A is for Apple: Grading Achievement in Schools
One quote that stuck out in my mind was about testing in education today “ Schools are preoccupied like doing well on the tests is the purpose of education". Many teachers are preoccupied to teaching the students to the test. Some believe that standard based education and frequent testing may impede student's learning.
A Look to the Future of Testing and Grading
As technology changes and advances everyday so does education. Schools are being held more accountable for students testing scores. Need to find a more consistent and valid way to test all types of students. Performance and authentic assessments, as well as the use of portfolios, are likely to replace the more traditional paper-and-pencils tests.
Digital portfolios
Digital portfolios (ePortfolios) are collections of student work that are stored electronically. They are records of student's progress throughout the year. They provide information to students, parents, teachers and members of the community. Digital portfolios can include varied media such as text, graphics, video and sound. The Department of Education Student Digital Portfolio (SDP) will enable strong links between a student’s planning, learning and the curriculum. This will help the collection of evidence of learning for assessment against the curriculum outcomes and standards.