Assessment guides learning in a variety of ways. Education is increasingly being lead by data that is collected through examination. It is agreed that we need to check that our students are learning, but assessment can guide our understanding of how, not only our students are performing, but also our teachers, schools, and curriculum.
Student achievement on standardized tests guides so much of education. While I agree that it is important to ensure that all students are receiving a solid education, I sometimes feel that authentic learning gets hindered when teachers are forced to teach to the test. This test will tell us, not only how individual students progress from year to year, but also how they are doing compared to other students. Standardized tests scores compare how well students have achieved in each class, school, neighborhood, and city across the country. Some lawmakers even want to create a formula that correlates student achievement on standardized tests with the salaries of teachers.
Assessment is typically considered as a tool to assess student learning. It is the method to determine how well the students are doing their job.
Teachers are trying to inspire student learning, and they must evaluate their students' comprehension. If none of the students learned the material, then the teacher obviously had not been successful with this lesson. In this way, assessment is also a tool to determine how well teachers are doing their jobs. Assessment can guide teachers to reflect upon the strengths and weaknesses of their lessons and tailor them to obtain greater success in the future. They will also be aware of the gaps in student knowledge, and have a deeper understanding for what the students need additional assistance with.
Ultimately, the purpose of evaluation is so that we are able to think metacognitively about our educational practices. In order to discuss understanding, assessment provides us with vocabulary to use in the conversation.
Understanding by Design (2006) discusses the creation of rubrics to guide assessment. The details in the rubric provide learners with a clear understanding of that which is expected of them. Educators must carefully consider the desired student learning outcomes and determine what characteristics would demonstrate said learning. Two questions guide users in the evaluation of a rubric:
"Could the proposed criteria be met but the performer still not demonstrate deep understanding?
Could the proposed criteria not be met but the performer nonetheless still show understanding" (Understanding by Design, 2006, p. 188)? These questions force educators to examine, not only how well the students are achieving, but also the validity of the assessment itself.
Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2006) Understanding by design. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.
As you pointed out, assessment is a useful tool for the teacher to determine if the students have understood the lessons and is essential to demonstrating the “strengths and weaknesses” of a given lesson for revision and improvement. When used in this manner, I believe that assessment is necessary and helpful.
ReplyDeleteSince this discussion opened the door on standardized testing I think I will share my experiences with this method of assessing student achievement. The reliance on standardized testing in the school districts, mandated by the state, is problematic. I see many teachers trying to teach to the test and skip worthwhile content in their grade level subject matter to try and hit the content they predict will be on the big standardized tests. Since the school receives status and funding in a district depending upon test scores and teachers with low performing students are censured in varying ways it feels like your job is on the line if you are a teacher in a school district that spends a lot of time analyzing test scores.
I also object to students taking exams on subject matter they are supposed to have spent the whole year on as early as April in the school year. This means teachers are trying to jam all of the necessary content for the school year in before the standardized tests are given, well before the school year ends. This doesn’t leave a lot of time for teachers to reflect on their lessons in the classroom and adjust pacing or re-teach lessons for students still struggling with certain content. The pacing required to keep up with the state testing schedule is brutal and does not lend itself to much personalization in lesson and unit planning. That being said, surely the school districts need a method of assessing students that allows them to reflect upon services provided to students, course content, and overall student achievement and thus make necessary changes. Schools and school districts should have the same opportunities to use assessment as a tool for improvement just as teachers do on a smaller scale. However, I do not believe that we have yet found a positive and effective way to truly assess our students on this mass scale. The repercussions, such as teaching to the test, leaving students behind who cannot hope to make enough improvement in a given year, and using resources to help kids who stand to make the most gains for a school’s test score at the cost of not providing those services to other students who will not boost the score enough, but would still make personal gains, are ruthless business type decisions that do not reflect the true nature of education.
Please forgive my "soap boxing"- but I feel passionately about the subject matter :-)
Your discussion forcefully reminded me of the limits of assessment in the form of "teach to test". Assessment is such a contentious issue, but I share in your belief that if it is misguided than it obviates authentic learning. Hopefully assessment will be guided by metacognitive knowledge and represent how the student actually learns.
ReplyDeleteAmie, you bring up a number of important points. One I must address is the problem with testing happening in April. In SFUSD we have slid the entire school year forward a month, so that students will go back in the middle of August and have more time before the test. While this addresses the "testing's over-- nothing left to do for the last two months of the school year" mentality, it also irks me that the test has managed to implant itself even more firmly in our ways of doing things. I also feel as if those last two months of school were sometimes the only time teachers got around to teaching the things that do not make it on a standardized test...Yet another aspect of the double-edged sword we call assessment.
ReplyDeleteOh boy....what a discussion and contentious topic! Here's (part of) my two-cents (I guess more like one cent then....):)
ReplyDeleteI think standardized testing is a horrible idea ~ there I said it! As you all point it, it minimizes both teacher and student creativity, limits comprehension, rewards breadth over depth, favors one form of assessment over all others (that are more authentic and diverse gauges of student understanding), wearies passionate teachers (and discourages those who feel passionately about public education from ever even entering into the system due to friends' and families' woes and horror stories as public school teachers and administrators....that's me!), elevates a "core" of knowledge and skills that is narrow and narrowing in both scope and content and even human potential, enforces rote memorization, is centered on a punitive system of reward and punishment (unfortunately, most of our society is), teaches students from an early age that if they do not fit the "standard(ized)" mold that they are unworthy and will be unsuccessful, perpetuating a tracking system that is still in place even if not formally established, and replaces teaching with instruction.
I think part of the problem is that it's all gotten way too big....everything! The Pew population projection is 438 million by 2050...in the US!(http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/703/population-projections-united-states)
Scaling things down to smaller units of government and administration (not corporately funded charter schools, though) is the only way to gain control over the monster. One model is the rise in farmers markets across the country ~ people are hungry (literally) for small-scale production and relationships that nourish and reward community vitality and sustainability. Can we create schools that are modeled on and encourage the same type of individuality, intimacy, community, self sufficiency, and diversity that develop spontaneously when humans feel empowered and responsible for their own learning?
Ok....now I'll get off my soapbox!