Rubrics

Rubrics are a great way to assess students for many different reasons.  Some are:

-It shows the students how they are going to be graded and what standards they need to follow in order for them to get an excellent grade.

-It makes it easier for the teacher to grade them because all they need to do is make sure that they have followed everything in the rubric that the students were given.

In my personal experience with rubrics, I have always managed to get a great grade for myself because I knew what the teachers were expecting of me.  Most of the rubrics that I have worked with have been numbered from 1-5.  Starting from one which basically shows that the student has barely given any effort to the project or essay.  Then to the highest grade that we could have possibly received was a five.  This shows that the student has given a great effort to the project or essay and deserves a great grade.  Every other grade that is in between just shows what the student needs to improve on, and this is what I like the most about it.  The rubric shows specific details and elaborated on what you really need to improve on to get a better grade then what you have received. 

It is also good for whenever a parent wants to come and talk about their child's paper or project. They can show the parent how they are grading their student.  The teacher can look at the rubric and say this is where your child went wrong and needs to improve.  Hopefully after they review the rubric, they can see some improvements in the students work.

Fairness in Assessment

This blog will talk about what ways that I feel is fair to assess children.  I think that there are many different ways that students can be assessed without having to deal with all the excess stress. But it is something that we all have to go through as students and it will be something that we have to face as teacher ourselves, how do we assess our students?  Do we consider how we felt when we were in school and we were given unfair assessments?  I feel that these are tough questions and hopefully we can deal with them in a proper manner and hopefully we can find good and fair ways to assess our students.

I have had teachers assess me very unfairly.  My most recent was a professor who told us that we were going to have a test on all of the poems that we have studied and went over so far.  He basically said to study all of the vocabulary and review all of the poems.  So this is what i had done.  When I walked into the class the day of the test, I felt confident enough to believe that I would be able to pass this test with flying colors.  I sat down and awaited for my test to be handed out to me, when I finally received my test I turned it over and realized that he wanted us to MEMORIZE lines out of the poems.  I started getting really nervous because there was about 10 poems that we had to go over and I did not memorize any of the lines from them because I thought he simply told us to REVIEW and KNOW what the poems were about.  Now of course I still passed the test but not to my full expectations.  I would have liked to get a better grade.  Now for the next test I will know exactly what he means and hopefully I feel more at ease and comfortable enough to actually live up to the grade that I want.

One of the ways that I have been fairly assessed is for example in Dr. Luongo's class.  It was clearly stated what was going to be on the midterm exam and clearly stated how we were going to be assessed.  We were each to have a chapter and make up ONE multiple choice question and ONE essay question, post it and she will use them on the exam.  The one reason that makes this fair is because it is made clear what is going to happen on the day of the exam.  Another example that I have is, in my philosophy class my professor clearly stated that his finals and exams were essays.  This is a fair way to assess students as well because it proves to him that we have been doing the assigned readings throughout the semester and that we have been paying attention to his lectures well enough to write a paper on what we have learned.

Another problem that we have to consider is, making sure that we as teachers grade the students tests fairly and that we do not treat one student better then another.  I am a big believer that all students should get the grade that they earn.  Personally if I were a student who had an answer wrong and it was marked right, I would be very upset, because that is not helping me improve, that will not help me learn and be able to fix a mistake that was made.  So I feel that making sure a teacher grades all the students fairly and giving them the grade that they deserve is very important because if you don't it can affect them in the future.

I hope you all enjoyed my blog on fairness in assessment. =)

Assessment

ASSESSMENT:

the act of assessing; appraisal; evaluation.

This blog will talk about different types of assessments and how I personally feel about them.

As it states up top, assessment is a form of evaluation.  In school I feel that it is a way to give a student a grade to show how well that they are progressing in the class.  This can show whether or not a student needs help with his or her work.  This is honestly the only way I feel that assessment is good.  My next paragraph will talk about how and why I feel assessment is bad. 

I personally do not feel the way we use assessment today is a fair way to grade a student.  I have had a lot of different types of assessment done on me, such as projects that count for a big portion of our grade or tests that just determine "a lot" such as the GEPA or the HSPA.  When I took the HSPA my teachers reminded me everyday and made sure we were aware that this test determined if we could get into a good college or not.  How is it fair that we should let one test determine what kind of college we should go to or what college we could get accepted to?  So if a student were to fail, what is that supposed to mean?  I agree with the video that we watched, I believe on tuesday, We need to go beyond pencils and bubble sheets.  We need to find a different way to assess children and students because this is an extreme amount of unnecessary pressure to put on a student who is still very young.  

To this day even I get surprised when I get tested and evaluated, I guess I can say that I learned to handle the pressure and if I do not understand something, I just speak up and say it.  I just feel putting pressure on someone who is still in grammar school and high school is just wrong.  Telling them that a test is going to determine how smart they are or what college they attend is just wrong.  We want students to be able to handle pressure, not run away from it. =)