For every educator, it is necessary for them to aim for good assessment measures because, if the assessment is bad, it usually leads to unsettling consequences
APRIL 11
During my short tenure as a Teach for Nepal, English fellow, I had the opportunity to learn much from the stakeholders, experts and leaders of the education sector before my placement in a public school in Dang Valley. I took the liberty of practising both summative and formative assessments, depending on the need of the class, and I found that both have their own benefits and drawbacks.
In my experience, using both assessments in instructional practices has been helpful. Formative assessments allowed me to identify areas where students may need additional support and provide immediate feedback to help them correct their mistakes. Summative assessments allowed me to measure a student's overall understanding of the material and make decisions about future educational opportunities.
When it comes to determining which type of assessment is best for student learning, it really depends on the context and goals of the instructional process. For example, if an educator wants to teach a new skillor concept, formative assessments would be more effective in helping students develop their understanding.
However, if we are trying to determine whether students have a broad understanding of a topic, summative assessments would seem more appropriate.
After a couple of years of teaching, I found that to determine if an assessment system meets the criteria of a good assessment, it is important to consider the following components:
Validity: Does the assessment accurately measure what it is intended to measure? The assessment should align with the learning objectives and the content covered in the instructional process. For instance, while teaching about the types of conjunctions during one class, my practice was to involve the class only with the content relevant to the topic. This would also mean that I make myself clear to not pitch in other parts of speech. This is why conducting a formative assessment at the end of five minutes of every class always worked out well for me, as this allowed me to check the students' immediate learning process throughreflection writing.
Reliability: Is the assessment consistent and repeatable? The assessment should produce consistent results across different administrations. For example, if the assessment is writing a persuasive essay, the rubric could include criteria such as organization, clarity of argument, use of evidence, and grammar and mechanics. Each criterioncould be assigned a point value, and the rubric could include descriptions of what a student would need to do in order to earn each point value.
Using a rubric ensured that all students were being assessed according to the same criteria and standards, which increases the reliability of the assessment. Especially during writing competitions when multiple teachers needed to grade the same assignments, using a rubric was the only reliable sourcethat helped to ensure consistency across different graders.
Objectivity: Is the assessment free from bias and subjective interpretation? The assessment should be objective and free from the influence of the teacher or other subjective factors.
For instance, if the assessment is on grammar, the test questions could ask about the correct use of aparticular verb tense or the proper way to form a sentence.
The answers to these questions are objective. In this way, using objective assessments helped my case to minimise the potential for subjective bias, as the grading is based solely on whether or not the answer is correct. It also provided a clear standard for what constitutes a correct answer.
Authenticity: Does the assessment reflect real-world tasks and skills? The assessment shouldalign with the skills and tasks that students will encounter in the real world. For example, while preparing a lesson plan on prepositions, I ensured that the learning objective for the class not only be limited to the dynamics of the use of prepositions but also to help them in real-life situations.
For this, we did a short role play where one student would ask for directions to the nearest health post and the other would respond with the use of the correct prepositions.
I realised that the students were able to internalise this learning in real life when I heard a student telling me that they tried giving directions to foreign tourists by proactively asking them if they had any trouble finding their destination. An authentic assessment can also help increase the transferability of their language skills to real-world situations.
The above four golden rules, namely proved solid in helping a fellow teacher like me with limited teaching experience to map the lesson objectives with a predefined silver lining.
While preparing any lesson these four criteria were included in the rubrics to ensure the learning of every child is enveloped and not limited to one component of good assessment.
For every educator, it is necessary for them to aim for good assessment measures because, if the assessment is bad, it usually leads to unsettling consequences.
Inaccurate feedback on students' understanding and progress can lead to students receiving grades that do not reflect their true level of understanding, which can have a negative impact on their motivation and engagement in the subject. It can also result in teachers not having an accurate picture of their student's progress, which can lead to ineffective teaching strategies and a lack of support for struggling students.
A wise lady during the training camp had a profound influence on my actions as an educator. She said, 'If you want to destroy the dream of a child studying in a public school, you can do so by simply not caring about them at all.' As an educator we must make it our life's ambition to urge ourselves to bring out the best in the students, and one way to do that could be by realising what harm bad assessments could do to them.
