Chapter 6 Reflection
One of the main purposes of education is to assess the understanding and learning of the students that are being taught. The way teachers do this is through assessment and evaluation. There are several methods of assessments that the book discusses which I feel are all very good. One type of assessment which I feel is excellent to use is the Informal Assessment. The book describes this assessment in Laymen terms by calling it a“on the fly” assessment. This could while the students are working on something or spot checks in a sense. What I like about this assessment the most is that you can gauge the questions for the students based on what you see and how they react to certain aspects of the lesson. A Diagnostic Assessment is also very good to learn exactly how much the student knows prior to gaining new knowledge. It could also offer a little insight in how the student prefers to learn. This chapter gave a lot of good examples of every type of assessment. What was most surprising to me (and at the same time, not so surprising) was that the frequency of Administrators use of assessments was once a year. I feel that this number should be much higher, especially if the principal is held accountable for the scores in his or her building. “Once a year” is definitely not enough to make necessary changes or to act proactively in any given case. However, I did mention that this is not surprising because principals, in my opinion, are more focused on numbers, budgets, and the business aspects of the school rather than an individual student’s education. That’s not to say that principals don’t care about the student’s learning, but that there is “prioritization” that occurs.
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In addition to what you've already pointed out, did you also notice how many types of assessments were presented in the chapter? There has been an explosion in the amount of literature on assessment in recent years--in no small measure because of the push toward accountability. Enter the administrator. Schools have had to deal with this culture of accountability. In some places, students are being over assessed. In other places, the assessments are administered, but the results are not studied carefully.
ReplyDeleteFor you, as the classroom teacher, it will be most important to have a handle on good assessment strategies--strategies that help kids learn. I would have you use this chapter as a resource as you go about designing assessments for your future students!