Sunday, September 14, 2008

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. =)

3 comments:

Dr. Luongo said...

Adalise,

What an excellent posting on assessment.

Yo stated, "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."

That is simply awful. Yet, these are statements that should make *you* a better educator. Remember what you want to become as mucha s what you do not want to become.

Thanks for posting!

Jennifer said...

hiii adalise! just wanted to say that I agree with you on your stance about how assessment cannot solely determine whether a student can acheive or not. From my own personal experience, I was never a good test taker yet I took honors and AP courses my whole life, go figure! Tests should not hold so much weight. I think what is more important is how the student performs in class througout the year.

Wendy said...

I agree with you in your statement, "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?" Personally, I am not a good test taker because when I think of tests I feel nervous and sometimes even frustrated. A single test shouldn't determine students’ lives in general. There are students who are brilliant while taking tests and do poorly in regular school days, while others perform poorly in test and they actually dedicate more time to do their best during the school year. I agree with Jennifer as well, in which it should be considered more important how a student performed during the year, rather than look at a single test.