Chapter Eight - Assessment in the Partnership Pedagogy
Summary
Chapter eight explains the different types of student assessment, including summative, formative, ipsative, peer, real world, and self. An example of summative assessment would be giving a student a test back with incorrect answers marked and no other feedback. Formative assessment is a bit more valuable because it includes incorrect answers marked along with comments and feedback. However, if too much time passes before the graded test is returned to the student, then the feedback loses value because the student may have lost interest. Ipsative assessment is more useful because it involves the student beating his or her own personal best, instead of peers in the classroom or in other schools or districts. Peer assessment involves exchanging work with peers to gain feedback and can be a useful too. Through various technological tools such as the Internet, students can now share work with others around the globe, and not just the student sitting next to them (real world assessment). Self assessment is necessary for success in life and standardized tests are necessary to satisfy state and federal requirements. The author suggests that students should be given the opportunity to be assessed in all of these different ways to provide well rounded and adequate feedback. The author also posits that students should be able to use tools such as calculators and cell phones to take tests.
Reaction
I really liked this chapter and agree that summative assessment does not go far enough in providing feedback. It leaves students with little information on how they can improve their grades. In addition, I have found that even as an adult, if I receive a test back and several weeks have gone by since I took the test, I am not as interested in figuring out why I missed certain items and how I can improve. I also prefer to compete against myself, knowing that there will always be others that are more or less knowledgeable.
I have also struggled with this as a student and a teacher. I was the same as you in school, most of the time when I received a test from a couple of weeks ago I threw it in the trash. Why do I care what I made on the last test, we have already moved on and I either learned the material or I didn't, regardless we were not there anymore. This is meantality that many students have..."I just have to know this for the test and then I can never think about it again." This is why in my class I have moved to online quizzing that provides immediate feedback on each question. Students can then see what they did wrong and the next time they take it they get a similar question. They don't get the same questions because most of the time those 10 questions are pulled from a 50 to 60 question bank. I still take paper and pencil tests but with the quizzing before the tests I have less grading (YAY!) and the students test scores have improved. I believe this is a product of the immediate feedback for students
ReplyDeleteI agree that formative assessment gives students the most guidance in improving performance, but I often find that students largely ignore feedback on subsequent assignments.
ReplyDeleteObserving in one of the local high schools last semester, I watched a teacher give her students opportunities to really analyze their test/quiz scores and other feedback.
The first method she used was asking students to graph continued performance. All of her quiz questions were tied to specific standards such that students could keep a running record of their performance on each standard. This was graphed during class time and kept in their science notebooks.
The other method this teacher used was to allow students to retake any test or quiz. However, before students could do this, they had to analyze what areas they were weak in, complete any missing study guides or homework assignments, and write a study plan to give her before they could retake the assessment and replace their score.
Surprisingly (to me), grades in her class still follow a normal distribution. Does this surprise you? As a student, would you always take these opportunities to improve your scores, or would this kind of analysis not be helpful to you?
There is a new type of 'testing' system that is being passed around the Norman school district in elementary school, and the premise is an ispastive type test where you are trying to beat your personal best. Take spelling, the idea is that at the beginning of the year you get the entire years worth of spelling words. Each week on test day the teachers pulls 20 words from the jar for students to spell. It is acceptable that at the beginning of the year, students will get few right because they have had little exposure to the words, but through the year as all the words are used in classroom assignments and activities and as students study the words they will begin to get more and more correct, trying to make a personal best in spelling each week. The student is constantly competing against themselves to be better and they look forward to spelling each week as they try. This can be done with math and other subjects as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, I often times will look for my grade on D2L, but do not look over the physical assignment to understand why I received the grade I did. If we, as graduate students, are not willing to look back on our performance and learn methods for improvement, than why should we expect our younger students to. I think the first step is returning materials in a timely manner and the second step is reviewing the answers with the students once the assignments have been handed back. After all, isn't important that they not only know how to answer, but also why that answer is correct. I think I will start looking at my assignments as two part lessons (day one is answering/day to is understanding the logic behind the answers). You could also hand back the assignments and circle the answers that were wrong and have students review the answer and correct it for credit. I like to do this and have the students given me a written reason for why they answered they way they did, and why the other answer is correct. This allows the student to reconsider the material, improve and also provides the opportunity for more points on the assignment. By installing in children that we can always go back and review the missed materials, we enhance their understanding of the content and provide room for improvement.
ReplyDeleteI have the same feeling about summative assessment, I remembered that when I was in middle school, we started to have a lot of writing classes, and we needed to write a lot of papers once a while, but every time when we handed in our papers, we always got it back like several weeks after, I didn't remember I wrote that before, so I didn't really care about the feedback. So, I think summative assessment has to be the quick assessment so that students can see the feedback immediately and they can fix their problem, certainly this won't fit for writing sometimes.
ReplyDelete