By way of introduction, I can say the word "assessment" is not very attractive for me, because a number of key issues arise from my mind; nervous, fear to fail, angry to be typecasted or that my potencial could be neutered as a result of be assessed (or more suitable tested). There is a clear distinction between assessement and test, which is actually what makes me feel like that, the thing is that both concepts are mistakenly taken as synonims.
For the great majority of people assessment must be presented in any academic context, and after reading to Genesee and Upshur I agree; it seems to me that assessment is like doing research for going a step further in the process of teaching and learning. The gist of the matter is that the objectives of the assessment are limited to get a score to fill an academic requirement at the end of the course, which actually would be testing.
To reach the decision making stage, I really want to believe that the teacher asked to his students which got a low score in the test if they were tired the day of the test, or just that he took into account all the different contexts in which each student in his class live, in order to enhance the student learning and his own performance as a teacher.
But not, may be it happens in institutions which I do not know, because I have been assessed...or tested... for about 20 years of my life, and no one took into account my context and background when I got a low score. I want to think that those procedures are used for a special case in which a special student has serious problems in his performance. So, I was not as bad as them.
When we look classrooms with 40-50 students, it seems to me that commitment must exists not only from the teacher (who is a key agent) but from institutions and beyond, the educational system, not only testing but also and really important, assessing students; and as a result of a good assessment, it can be useful to improve teacher instruction and to enhance students learning process.
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ReplyDeleteAssessment for me was a totally new word in my vocabulary. The scary word for me a few years ago when I was a high school studen was "evaluation"
ReplyDeleteAs you say, assessment and evaluation are completely different but besides different, the former was a concept that schools didnt take into account years ago. As far as I have read we were just evaluated at school. Teacher did little or nothing to follow our learning process, they just said the magical words quiz or exam to change from a weekend of videogames to a weekend of reading and memorizing numbers and letters. You named context and background, concepts that I consider key when "evaluation" comes to act. How many times we had a sad or disturbing event before taking the exam. Teacher were not prepared to face situations like that.
To conclude, assessment comes to play a great role on the educational system because just taking a test doesn't prove that we really learned. Our whole process must be taken into account and assessment ensures meaningful learning that Ausubel exposes on his theory.
I agree with Oscar, assessment was a new word form me. However, we have to reflect on that aspect because people have been in touch with that kind of process all the time but, maybe what has happened is the fact that we never think about how these processes are carried out. I think the main issue to highlight here, it is that teachers are not to use assessment as an important part in the learning process even when they have learned about that because this kind of process is time consuming and harder for grading, so they take the short cut and gather everything in simple evaluations which creates learning gaps for students. Finally, it is our task as teachers to reflect on those topics and try to generate effective ways in which those learning gaps can be filled resulting this in meaninful learning for our students.
ReplyDeleteI strongly think that the main or purest purpose of assessment should be concerned with the improvement of our students' performance, rather than with merely giving a grade only for the sake of filling a requirement. I agree with your posture regarding students' emotional state when presenting a test. That's why I think it is very important to analyse their performance beyond the grade they might obtain from an exam, and to take into account their actual process, instead of considering only the 'result'. In that sense, assessment would not only be about the grades, and it would be present throughout all their process as it should always be.
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