Chapter 4: Three Important Types of Assessment (Fair Isn't Always Equal)

Abstract:

This chapter focused three ways a teacher can determine whether the student has mastered the content. The three different techniques were; having the student prepare a portfolio of various works through out the school year, score the work using a pre-determined rubric, or have the students do a self-assessment. All three of these techniques do not have to stand on their own, one or more can be combined to have a thorough insight of the student's mastery.

Portfolios provide a way for students to take part in their ability to obtain knowledge by setting their own goals, assessing how far they have come, and developing ways to help them reach the goal(s). Long term portfolios show students how they have progressed over the years, and short term portfolios help students reflect on the work they have done that year.

The next assessment technique was rubrics which is a very popular way of assessing a student's work. Rubrics may sometimes be one of the more challenging assessments to create because there is a lot of criteria that students need to meet. There are two different varieties of rubrics. Holistic rubrics where grammar and content is graded as a whole and analytic rubrics break down each component. The book provides a seven step program on how to create an effective rubric. The steps are: (1) identify essential and enduring content and skills, (2) identify what is acceptable evidence, (3) write a description on the highest performance, (4) make a decision between holistic or analytic, (5) determine label for each level, (6) write a descriptor for each level, and (7) test drive the rubric.

Lastly, were student self-assessments. Some different examples of student self-assessments are self-checking rubrics, video taping a presentation and then analyzing it, or using a journal/learning log. Having the students self-assess themselves allows the student and the teacher to understand what the student thinks of their work and it provides insight to the teacher as to how hard the student thinks they worked.

Reflection:

The overall feel from the class is that this chapter was a good one. There was not one type of assessment that was favored each one was discussed a little deeper. One classmate stated, "I think the biggest reason that I favor portfolios is that they show growth over time and lets us actually show learning instead of just recalling facts." Having students show their ability to learn is the reason we are sent to school. We want to gain knew knowledge and grow as students. Yes, memorizing facts and problems will get you through but chances are you will not remember that information a couple years later. Portfolios provide a set of works that the student can easily share with family, friends, or administrators to show that they have mastery with the content. Most of the class realized that there was a lot of hard work that went into rubrics. Also, having different styles of rubrics was an idea that some classmates liked. Rubrics provide the students with a check-list system and allows them to see how much each section of the project or paper is worth. This way they can spend the appropriate amount of time on each section. Student self-assessment was also received well by the class. One classmate said, "It is important that students can recognize where they did well, or where they struggled." Using a student self-assessment allows the students the opportunity to evaluate their own work after it has been completed and turned in.

Overall, this chapter was received very well. The class seemed to learn a great deal on assessing the students in ways other than handing out a multi-page test at the end of every unit.