Assessment

Blog Post 1 (October 27, 2016)

Growing up in elementary school I never thought too much about how I was being assessed as a student. I worried more about completing my work and doing the best I can, but once I handed work in I moved on to the next assignment never worried about my mark or how I did. In secondary school I had similar practices it wasn’t until college and university I changed my view on assessment and more specifically how I self-assessed myself.

           

It’s hard to think back to elementary school days and the way I was assessed as a student, there are certain assignments and subjects that stand out to me but specifics I’m finding hard to remember. One thing is that assessments were a lot more formative as opposed to subjective when I reflect to assessment now days. We had weekly quizzes followed by unit tests to see how we learned the material for each subject. Never really had the opportunity to self-reflect and assess ourselves and find out our progression through a unit. I think that is why I never really concerned myself with my progression as a student and rather completed what I had to and moved onto the next unit or assignment. We never had the opportunity to determine our progress with a unit and try to better our understanding of a topic and find different strategies. This is particular to math, math was a unit that the teacher showed us how to solve questions and the problems and we did it the same.. We as students did not have the ability to explore and be able to solve problems with different strategies; we were more one-dimensional math learners. Language arts I remember working on book reports as a unit, however the class read the same book assigned by the teacher. Now I reflect back and wonder if we were give the opportunity to read possibly a book we preferred would we take more interests to book report and reason behind doing them (personally I did not enjoy book reports when I was younger).

I also specifically remember doing EQAO tests and the CAT test in grade 4 and remember he pressure to perform well on those tests. As a student I found tests and exams hard and a lot of pressure, I enjoy presentations and group work more and I always felt pressure completing them and when I did not do as well as other students felt as if I did not perform to the standards set. It wasn’t until later I found out the purpose for conducting those provincial test.

Report Cards and letter grades were how we were assessed throughout elementary school. The one area I wish we had the opportunity learn more about and take more into account was the learning skills and work habits. As important as learning material and the different subjects were the importance of these skills should have been stressed upon more. I think they are very important for when we continue into post-secondary and into our careers and lives. If I could I would have wanted to understand these more when I was younger. I also would have wanted to know more about my progress throughout the year, be assessed on work more frequently and given more feedback.

Transitioning into Secondary school a lot of the work was individual work and not a lot of group work. There was the odd assignment depending on the subject however we were assessed on how we worked individually and again this did not really prepare us for post-secondary. We did get more progress reports on how we were doing throughout courses, which was nice because I began to take assessment more serious. I started to appreciate assignments I was working on how I was doing them and about the final product I was handing in.

I now have a new appreciation for assessment, I believe it helps a students greatly grow as a learner and help them build a growth mindset. I think we as educators should emphasize how our students get assessed and help students to learn how to self-assess themselves so they can monitor they’re learning and progression through school and to also place more importance on learning skills and work habits. These skills will help a student grow tremendously and will play a role in developing their work habits for one school ends and real-world begins.

Blog Post 2 (December 1, 2016)

Over the course of a very fast and compact six weeks we have examined, read, and interpreted the context in Growing Success. As an educator there will always be resources and curriculum document you will have to follow and implement in your teaching practices, and Growing Success is one of those resources. It has helped me to analyze and breakdown different areas of assessment more then what I knew at the start of the course. Although the Kindergarten Addendum is beneficial for educators who are focusing their careers with the younger students I found it easy to understand and still beneficial to keep on hand and have read through. Growing Success was broken down into chapters that outlined different policies and explained policies with maximum detail and easy to interpret text. Examining the chapters similar to how we did in class helped to identify the key points of chapters and to be able to critically analyze key points from each chapter to remember when implementing assessment in the classroom or gymnasium.

I have grown to appreciate assessment more after 8Y01. Growing up as a student I always wanted to know my feedback on my work as opposed to my actually letter grade or percentage grade, the benefits that students can take from feedback and assessment can further develop their learning abilities. I do however understand the importance of giving students specific grades but the importance on feedback is crucial and will be emphasized greatly in my classroom. Growing Success has also helped me to understand the different areas on the report card and how important the learning skills and work habits apply to a student as they grow. Although the reporting aspect of L.S. & W.H. are not stressed as heavily as the subject areas it is important to implement these in the classroom outside of assessing them. For instance setting up students to be successful in collaboration, help students be able to self-regulate themselves each day.

Another area of Growing Success that has impacted my beliefs of assessment is the connection of learning goals and success criteria to what I am assessing the students. I understand clearly why it is beneficial to connect them to how and what we are assessing the students in and it will certainly help to create effective assessment tools. Learning the different assessment and how each of them are different and can be used in different subjects and for assessing students in different manner has helped shed light on evaluation.  I believe that practice makes perfect and as we continue into our placements and throughout our teacher college experiences we will develop the skills to be able to observe our students learning, interpret their knowledge and be able to assess their understanding of the subjects being assessed. We need to give students a purpose for learning and when they are actively engaged in their learning and are provided ongoing feedback it can help motivate them to continue striving and become successful learners. 

via GIPHY


Instructional Planner (8Y01 Planner & Assessment Tool)