Measuring what are students know and are able to do is a vital part of teaching. The question is exactly how we should accomplish this. I read the article "How Should We Measure Student Learning? The Many Forms of Assessment" by Edutopia Staff. and watched the video "Making a Case for Comprehensive Assessment." Both of these items bought up some great points. Not all learners are great test takers. Multiple choice and short answer assessments do not test for things our students are going to need in order to be successful. For instance, in today's world, there is an emphasis on teamwork and collaboration. Neither of these are tested in our current testing instruments. In the video I watched, A New York High School is using performance based assessments to gauge student learning rather than the state's high stakes testing instrument. I think this is an excellent approach to assessing what our students actually know and can be able to do. At this high school they use a system of assessments that include portfolios, presentations and standards bases projects rather than a single assessment item. Our current situation of assessing student knowledge at one time with one instrument just does not make sense to me. Can such an instrument really assess what that student has learned?
Unfortunately, that is the world we live in today. Our teaching is so geared to making sure our students can do well on the state test. I know in my classroom, I actively teach test taking skills. At times, I feel like I am teaching students to be great test takers rather than teaching them the content.
As to my inquiry plan, I would like to focus on student engagement. If students are engaged, they will learn. If they learn the content, they will do well on the assessments.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sounds like you found some good resources- the video sounds interesting- I agree with you that we need to find multiple ways to assess so that we really measure learning. That said- now you ae starting to zero in on an inquiry. You mentioned focusing in on student engagement. So what this inquiry needs to be is an examination (or think of it like a mini-research project) on this topic. First, what would you like to improve specifically (one time of day- one subject-one group?)? What can you try to improve engagement (you mentioned group work or alternative assessment in your post)? And then how will you measure or see if this is working (a video is one way but perhaps taking some reflective notes, or giving the students a self-assessment, or trying a different type of assessment)? Start narrowing down this topic to an actual inquiry project you can do in your classroom.
ReplyDeleteMore on this in the next module- coming soon!
I am still trying to figure out what my inquiry project should be... ugh...Since I teach students with exceptional needs, I have learned various ways developing alternate assessements as indicated on my blog.
ReplyDeleteMany of my students are hands on and struggle with the pencil paper assessment. I am always attempting to find ways student can take the common assessment and state assessments. After reading your blog, I am curious about the test taking stills that you teach. My student seem to think, "if I don't know the answer mark C".
During reading assignments, I explain to students to read the questions first, because the question may give you the sentence which it is referring.
If you have other test taking strategies could you pass them along.
I like how the school in New York focuses on different types of assessment. As a teacher in special education, I am supposed to 'close the gap' of learning between the measure of regular education students and special education students. Some students would be able to improve their learning outcome if we gave the students a choice of the method given. Most students will take more ownership and pride if given choices, rather than forced upon a task.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea for your inquiry plan. Student engagement is a subject where I can learn more. I am excited to hear what you discover.
How ironic that we read the same article out of all the articles available. I too found this article very informative. It is so true that some students are just not good test takers. A lot of test data comes across my desk and I can see trends where some so called “smarter students” are not performing as well as some of the others. That is another reason why standardized testing should not be the only way to assess understanding.
ReplyDelete