Assessment OF Learning: A reflection

In reference to your collaborative exercise, how did you find your “experience” of having to go through the steps to generate an assessment? Which of the guide questions in the sequence was most difficult to address? Why?

 For me, it is the question “How can I ensure quality in this assessment?” is most difficult to address because a lot of considerations (factors) goes with it, such as reliability, validity, reference points,  record keeping, feedback, differentiated learning and reporting. All these must be borne in mind before an assessor/teacher can say, “This is my assessment, my decision on a students’ performance.”

 Based on your casual observations or day-to-day experiences, how do practicing teachers actually construct their assessment tools? What are the implications of your observations? 

Based on casual observations, practicing teachers usually construct assessment tools using the traditional tools such as quizzes, written and oral tests, observations. I have serious doubt that they consider differentiated learning, reference points, feedback, record-keeping and other factors mentioned above; and that they simply do those assessment just for the sake of having to score a students’ tests and for the sake of having to give a grade at the end of the quarter or academic year.  

 

 

 

 

Assessment FOR Learning: A Reflection

Oh no, I have never imagined crafting assessment FOR learning purposes. In fact I found this particular activity to be one of the most challenging in the PTC courses I have taken, much more daunting because it being a “collaborative” work. There were several times that I sat before my computer, sometimes with pen and paper in hand, to attempt to work on this task but it was like a huge mountain I could not muster enough strength to push and move away from my path. (Deep sigh). Finally, here it is. Not yet completely done but thankfully I have managed to get through that big barrier, and I will get THERE.

 

Now, the idea of TRANSFORMATIVE ASSESSMENT ON A NATIONAL SCALE, may be really unnerving, but, oh well, (shrug) they say great things come from small beginnings. It CAN be DONE.

Personal Commitment in Teaching and Assessment

On this blog, I wish to share a personal anecdote, which I quote from my post in the discussion forum on Implications of assessment on learning.

 

“I once had a high school freshman student, a 14-year-old boy who had a history of poor academic performance in grade school including being a repeater, a bully, and appeared to have been simply given passing grades by his elementary teachers so this student will not be in their class in the next year anymore. And so, he was enrolled in a small private school where I used to teach. During a faculty meeting, we discussed this particular child and there I was influenced by my co-teachers to take the ‘nurturing’ approach rather than being the ‘disciplinarian/stick to the rules’ approach to this student.

 

After an initial assessment (diagnosis), I figured out that this child indeed ‘stood out’ among the rest of the class, that he needed not only a different approach in teaching/learning but also a different set or types of assessment. This child was truly a challenge to all faculty members, for at first he could not even write his own name properly, his level of spoken English is probably at pre-school level, and his reading skills were even worse. While delivering my lesson he would disrupt the class by doing something to his seatmate. He ran around the classroom and did whatever he wanted. It was this part of teaching that I was not really ready for. So what I did was prepare a separate lesson/learning materials for him which he would work on while I deliver the lesson to the rest of the class. I asked him to sit on a separate desk while working on his ‘seat work’. I believe that what I did was also complemented in his other classes as we, his teachers compared notes as to his performance in school.  It did wonders, especially as I observed that his unruly behaviour in class were minimized, he gained self-confidence, and perhaps even self-respect as his social-emotional activities became more acceptable to his classmates, teachers and even in his family.

 

Well, my realization is that had I stuck with my initial assessment that this child is a ‘slow-learner’; that he is so way below the high school level in language and communication skills that he could not ever come close to his peers during that one school year; and that probably I, too, would have simply given that child a failing grade.  Yet, thankfully I had good natured colleagues in that high school department where they may not be considered the intellectual types but as a novice teacher, their presence and well-meaning advice on teaching/classroom management and dealing with kids like this child had helped me examine my own teaching style and my conscience. I may have been his teacher for only a year, but I am happy and proud to have been part of the teaching staff that helped this boy achieve his and his parents’ dream of finishing high school and eventually earning a college degree.

 

XXX

 

By being aware of these covert effects of assessments, today’s teachers must conduct continuous and regular planned assessment. Through this, teachers can purposely plan, design and alter their teaching/learning goals for each child (individual learners) and/or groups of children/learners.”

 

 

Having shared my favourite personal teaching anecdote, I can only say that doability and personal commitment are indeed partners in this teaching/learning vis-a-vis assessment endeavour.

 

A teacher has to be personally committed to the teaching and learning of every child that comes to the classroom. It has to be a commitment to do his best, all his might to reach out to every learner.

 

As I have learned from experience and from this online course, I will have to initiate an assessment plan for every class, wherein each learner has learning goals, visit the goals periodically and adjust the goals according to the needs of the learners. For it is through assessment that I will learn how to teach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

 

Bautista, Feny de los Angeles. (1999). Active Assessment in the Philippines. UNICEF. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/teachers/forum/0199.htm.

 

Dunn, Et. al. (2004) The Student Assessment Handbook: New Directions in TRaditional and Online Assessment. NY: Routledge Falmer. 

A sample of poorly aligned assessment

I skimmed through my child’s test papers from her grade 1 class and found a good example of a very poorly-aligned assessment, as it is not at all aligned to the K to 12 curriculum that was supposed to have been already in place beginning last school year 2012-2013.  Looking at “The K to 12  Curriculum Guide ARALING PANLIPUNAN (Grade 1 to Grade 7), January 31, 2012” the grade level standard for grade 1 states that: 

Naipamalas ang kamalayan bilang batang Pilipino at kasapi ng pamilya at paaralan at pag-unawa sa batayang konseptong pagpapatuloy at pagbabago, distansya at direksyon at ang pagpapahalaga sa kapaligiran ng tahanan at paaralan tungo sa paglinang ng isang mamamayang mapanuri, mapagmuni, responsable at produktibo, makakalikasan, makatao, at makabansa na may pambansa at pandaigdigang pananaw at pagpapahalaga sa mga usapin sa lipunan sa nakaraan at kasalukuyan tungo sa pagpanday ng kinabukasan. (p4)

For both Grades 1 and 2, the themes are:

 

1. A.      Tao, kapaligiran, at Lipunan
2. B.      Panahon, pagpapatuloy, at pagbabago
3. C.      Kultura, Pagkakakilanlan, at Pagkabansa
4. D.     Karapatan, Pananagutan at Pagkamamamayan

 

Further, for the fourth quarter, the topic is Ako at ang aking Kapaligiran, which is divided into two parts A. Ako at ang aking Tahanan at Paaralan and B. Pangangalaga sa Kapaligiran.

 

The curriculum guide also specified the Content standards, Performance standards and Learning competencies.

 

However, a look into the 4^th Quarter Exam reveals a completely different topic, as shown in the attached photo (Figure 3 & 4). The test questions were about the national symbols of the Philippines. Another part of the test was about religions or the practice of religion in the country.   I read and re-read the entire curriculum guide, thinking that maybe the topics were moved to / from another quarter but I am quite sure that what was taught to my child and her class were totally off-topic and a deviation from the existing curriculum  that was in effect for the school year.