As the Ministry of Education brings in the BCEdplan with more emphasis on personalized learning, why shouldn’t assessment become personalized as well? With a push to allow students to inquire and study what interests them and to uncover their passion, why should a multiple choice test for someone with a learning disability be allowed to dissuade such a passion.
There is no question that the standard summative assessment method of testing is on the way out and assessment for learning and assessment as learning are becoming more prominent. With the advent of technology in society and in the classroom, assessment needs to change along with that. Individuals can customize their news, their shopping, their music, their ringtones, why shouldn’t students be able to choose how to be assessed.
Assessment for Learning
I am a proponent of formative assessment because it is a teaching method or tool that can benefit students and teachers alike. Assessment is not an add-on or an after thought, it should be incorporated into everyday teaching. For students it allows them to gauge their learning which is so key for their confidence and self-esteem. For the teacher, the results of the formative assessment in the middle of a lesson or unit allow for future lessons or methodologies to be adjusted.
Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down
The above is an informal way of checking in with students without putting them on the spot. Thumbs up or thumbs down gives the student the comfort of providing feedback with others rather than being asked individually whether they grasp the lesson at hand.
Exit Slips
Exit slips is another way that allows students to provide feedback about the lesson or material that is being taught. Exit slips also work in an anonymous fashion as it allows the quiet learner to anonymously let the teacher know if they are not grasping the material.
Blogs/Journals
I am excited to incorporate blogging into my classroom. For business subjects such as economics or marketing that are so much a part of our everyday lives, I believe that applying the material to the real world is key. By applying the material to the real world in a blog format allows the students to incorporate critical thinking and writing skills. It also allows the teacher to assess their learning by reading their blog on a regular basis.
Assessment of Learning
This is the traditional method of assessment. This incorporates the use of a task or activity to measure the level of achievement of a student for specific learning expectations. Assessment of learning can be somewhat controversial due to the fact that it is often used to certify proficiency for a future level of education and is often in the form of tests. This does not take into account the diverse learners in the classroom that may suffer from anxiety from taking tests, while others may have a learning disability that prevents them from performing to their best on tests.
Due to the diversity of our learners, the various characteristics of assessment come to light such as fairness, validity, and reliability.
Fair assessment
Fairness in assessment brings to light that not all methods of marking students are fair due to their learning abilities. A fair assessment is one that is barrier free and that allows all students to show their qualifications. An excellent way of making an assessment fair is to allow all students to see ‘what good looks like’ by seeing works from students in previous years.
Valid assessment
An assessment tool cannot be simply valid or invalid, it has a degree of validity. For example a social studies test can have high validity for measuring student’s comprehension of the events of confederation but low validity in terms of measuring student’s ability in math.
Reliable assessment
There are many examples of the reliability of an assessment. For instance who marks a test or when the test is taken, should have no bearing on the results. A student should be able to get similar results on a test written on Monday and on Wednesday. This would be a reliable form of assessment. In regards to archery, a test that results in all of an archer’s shots being a foot to the right of the target would be evidence of a reliable assessment but not a valid one.
Follow