Building Language into Assessment and Assignments
This was our week to present and I must say I had some fun with this topic. Assessment has unfortunately become the dark side of education for many teachers and students, an unpleasant task that must be done and be over with as soon as possible. I remember growing up listening to my teacher saying, “I know these tests suck guys, but they will help you in the future.” Upon which I thought to myself, well geez sign me up coach sounds fantastic. We played on this evil idea of assessment at the beginning of our presentation and had students write a ridiculous quiz that assessed how well they read the assignment. We berated students for talking or not understanding really playing up the act. The point was to poke fun or bring up past experiences that many of us have gone through in the realm of assessment. What is sad, is that we can relate to these experiences, we’ve all had a teacher who assessed us in a way that was so unfair and left us frustrated and unable to display what we knew. This was our overarching message that I hope struck home to many in the audience. Don’t put your students through what you went through. Create assessments that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and express their thoughts, think of ways to challenge them in your questions that causes them to think, not just spit out the answer as it was written in the notes. Additionally I think we need to think long and hard about what it means to give good quality formative assessment, that tells students where they are at and where they need to improve. I’m looking forward to the challenge.