Assessment
Assessment is an integral part of learning. Good assessments take into account all learning styles. Assessment should measure the students' ability to achieve the objectives and should not be used to compare one student with another. Assessments should be continuous for its effectiveness to be evident. Assessments should be varied and a number of different assessment tools should be used consistent with what is being measured.
Assessment and feedback are two sides of the same coin. When assessments are given feedback should be timely and comprehensive in order for it to be useful. Generally I would correct exams and return scripts in a timely manner. The quality of feedback to individual students however was something that I rarely did. One of the most significant things that I learnt in curriculum class was that each student should receive feedback in each class. This seemed to be an impossible task to me especially with a lower school with thirty-seven students in a class. In the past I would often give students summative assessments but not formative assessments. The danger with failing to give formative assessments is that students may fail the summative assessment because any misconceptions that they may have had during the unit was not identified and corrected.
Two assessment tools that I started to use as a result of DipEd were checklists and rubrics.
Assessment and feedback are two sides of the same coin. When assessments are given feedback should be timely and comprehensive in order for it to be useful. Generally I would correct exams and return scripts in a timely manner. The quality of feedback to individual students however was something that I rarely did. One of the most significant things that I learnt in curriculum class was that each student should receive feedback in each class. This seemed to be an impossible task to me especially with a lower school with thirty-seven students in a class. In the past I would often give students summative assessments but not formative assessments. The danger with failing to give formative assessments is that students may fail the summative assessment because any misconceptions that they may have had during the unit was not identified and corrected.
Two assessment tools that I started to use as a result of DipEd were checklists and rubrics.
ChecklistsIn the past I would give students work and attentively monitor them while they were completing their tasks without taking any anecdotal notes but rather relying on memory. That has proven to be futile because by the time I leave the classroom and in most cases head into another classroom I would quickly forget any details from the previous class.
The use of checklists had proven to be tremendously helpful in the formative assessment of students rather than just direct observation. The samples of checklists that I have used from the start of the programme to its completion illustrate my growth not only in terms of the use of the tool but also the design of the tool. |
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RubricsThe use of rubrics was another assessment tool that I found to be very useful. The sharing of the rubric with the students also aided in getting higher quality projects and presentations as compared to the past. I believe because the students were quite clear as to how they would be marked they were able to ensure that they fulfilled the criteria for obtaining maximum marks. Previously all group members would not participate in oral presentations but because the rubric clearly stated that marks would be deducted if all persons did not contribute to the delivery of the presentation, each person participated in each group that presented. Rubrics were developed for marking students' Power Point presentations, the development of a website, the design of a flowchart and for group oral presentation.
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Continuous AssessmentDuring the second term of the academic year continuous assessments are given to the students. It has always been my observation that the students perform significantly better in these end of units summative assessments than at the end of term summative assessments.
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