Monday, February 18, 2013

What are effective methods in assessing students?

Through my purpose question, I really focused on the different areas of assessment for students. At the beginning of this chapter, it talked about the formal method of assessments, standardized tests. This form of assessment is not an accurate or effective method for students. The standardized tests are more focused on helping the schools interpret their data rather than the teacher interpreting the data of their student. This use of formal, high-stakes tests can cause a lot of negatives for the students as their are many complications that can go wrong with students trying to take this test. One factor that plays into formal assessments is the student's literacy. Student's have to understand the language the test is written which can be far different from the language and vocabulary their teacher uses. Teachers can help in making the formal assessments more effective is by understanding the language that these tests are written. By doing this, it can better students performance because it will allow them to understand the instructions and questions within the formal assessments.

One of the more effective forms of assessment for students is the informal and authentic based assessments. These are more student and classroom based and provides a more accurate account of the knowledge students are gaining within the classroom. Through the observations based from the informal assessments it can better increase a teachers efficiency and effectiveness. Observations and assessments aid in the teachers understanding of his or her students. Through constant use of these methods it provides important feedback for the students improvement in performance as well as effective teaching methods from the teacher. Another informal assessment this chapter discussed was the use of a portfolio. I thought this idea was interesting to me as it provided me with a new type of possible assessment for students. Through one example given in the book I thought I could try and incorporate this in my classroom by have my students do research on a topic to better understand how math can be used in the "real world". I know I have wanted to incorporate this idea  into my classroom but having the portfolio provided me with a context in which I could use this to see if the students would understand the material being taught.

Through this chapter, I have learned that multiple forms of assessments should be used in order to be effective for students. By interchanging the forms it provides students with multiple ways to show their performance. However, for multiple forms to be effective it is up to the teacher to understand the strengths and weaknesses found within the classroom in order to challenge the students but also make sure it is an accurate display of the performances being observed within the classroom.

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