THINKING LIKE AN ASSESSOR
In this chapter, we move on from the first stage to the second stage. In this stage, it is vital to think as an assessor rather than a teacher. The purpose of assessment is to provide teacher and student with information and insights to improve teaching effectiveness and learning quality. There are three questions which teachers as assessors have to ask ourselves before designing a particular test or task. This chapter is focused on the first question which is connected to the kind of evidence needed to assess a variety of learning goals generally and understanding specifically. As teachers, we tend to design lessons, activities and assignment without thinking about the performances and products we need to teach toward. If we skip this stage our design is going to be less coherent. Effective assessment includes lots of evidence using a variety of methods and formats which are informal checks for understanding, observations and dialogues, tests and quizzes, academic prompts and performance tasks. During performances, the teacher has to provide students with authentic problems rather than exercises out of context in order to have transferability. The authors suggest framing performance assessment using six facets which help us in finding the right kinds of tasks and also using GRAPS which refines each task to ensure its authenticity.
Unfortunately, it seems to be that teachers’ beliefs are complex barriers which hinder us from achieving this approach to assessment. We are more concerned about grading than providing evidence of our students’ understanding. What is more, we are used to frame our assessment in knowledge which is not meaningful at all.
If we want to succeed in assessing students, we have to be able to put this approach to assessment into action. It is a difficult task and takes time but it will bring fruitful results.
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Hi Paloma!
ReplyDeleteI agree wit you on the fact that we have to use as many methods as possible to evaluate our students, we have to move from te traditional written test to more innovative and engaging ways of assessing.
Thanks,
Vicky
Dear Palomita,
ReplyDeleteAs you mention above, to become an assessor we need to design a variety of methods and strategies that will help us to see if our students really understand or not. I must confess that I'd love to be something like an assessor, but I have to be realistic and see things as they are, I can't be one of them, not today. I really think this is one of the things that make our educational system different from the ones that really work in developed countries, for example. Teachers need to have a vast preparation and training in these techniques, but all teachers, not only the ones who are part of an MA program. Teachers need time to get together and discuss strategies that will help their students to tackle the different problems they will face in the classroom. Teachers need to feel comfortable and respected by society, so as to create self confidence. Then, the problem becomes bigger, it's not just a matter of working hard but there are deeper things that affect the process.
Dear Dovy
ReplyDeleteI guess we're not only hindering this model of assessment, but also the contents, the methodologies, and sometimes the respect for the students. One essential aspect to consider as well is the affective domain; unfortunately, we don't have such a detail material to teach some people to domain that domain, perhaps there is and I don't know (part of being a sinner). As you close your post, it's not just a matter of working hard, but there are deeper things that affect the process, like respect.
Hi Paloma!
ReplyDeleteAs you mention, teachers in general do not gather enough (if so) evidence about the learning process, but just the outcome.
There is usually higher teacher talking time, little time to practice and almost no time to production. Therefore, there is no feedback given. Homework (if done) becomes the only way students produce something, by themselves, with overall checking and no individual checking is provided... a snowball effect which contradicts with the ideal continuous feedback.
Although it is time consuming, the positive results which are evident in the short term prove that it is effective and worthy at the end of the day. Teacher are there to guide students' learning, aren't we?
Dear Paloma,
ReplyDeleteAs you suggested, the purpose of assessment is to provide teacher and student with information and insights to improve teaching effectiveness and learning quality,yet what is the assessment implementation like in our classes?
We are more concerned about grading than providing evidence of our students’ understanding. We are dealing with short term and loose assessment in with we cover units without any connection. Furthermore, we are not demanding any proof of actual understanding from our students.
As you said the first stage is to plan, thinking in what you want to get, but it entails a difficult task because we need to make the contents work in a real context, therefore all the activities should have a practice connotation, in order that students can prove that they are really effective at the moment of solving problems. The second stage is referred to the way in which teachers assess the level of understanding obtained by students, commonly tests and quizzes are regarded as the unique and traditional instruments to measure that, however after reading this paper we can realize that they are not so advisable to use, because a process should be controlled from the beginning in order to perceive any difficulty, and give it a soon solution, in order to achieve the desired results.
ReplyDeleteColleagues:
ReplyDeleteHave you ever had a 'black Sunday'? Well, I am having one now. First, I will define what a black Sunday is... It is one of those days when you suffer from a terrible backache provoked by too much sleeping. You are also in a bad mood because you will have to work again after a beautiful Saturday. So you think about education, these revolutionary ideas and your own future... All this make me think of the past and a memory of my university days. There was this one time when I was studying literature, figures of speech and I was having trouble with some of them and out of nothing my mother who was ironing gave me a lecture on the matter. She left high school in 1968 and she was perfectly able to help in my problem. Now, I teach the same to my students, with lots of examples ( i don't torture them using a rule) with ppts, I ask them to provide their own examples, that can be taken out of simple life... but one week after the class 50% of the students forgot everything... So!? What about these new methods? Perhaps, psychology is guilty of considering the students to be made up of glass and not flesh and bones. If you demand to much, they break. If you squeeze their brains, they break. If you complain about something, they get a trauma. And no matter what new revolutionary good methodology and strategy you use, the students will not learn anyway...
Dear Paloma,
ReplyDelete“The purpose of assessment is to provide teacher and student with information and insights to improve teaching effectiveness and learning quality”. Clearly, assessment is an issue; especially at the moment to put it into practice and especially when our beliefs do not allow us to go beyond and think like assessors. Difficult task as you say but not impossible I guess… maybe all the guideline we get from his chapter can be useful but I still think that we must take into account all the variables we find in our educational system, institutions and classrooms..."deeper thing to change..."