Assessment

In a perfect world, how would you assess your students? Discuss the benefits and challenges to implementing that in the SOL-driven world that we live in.

Our classroom days revolve around assessment, formal or informal.  While assessment has different meanings depending on if you are a student’s parent, a teacher, an administrator, or a government official, it frequently displayed in a quantitative manner. Students and parents learn that the student received a certain percentage on a test, teachers discover that only X number of students passed the standardized test or certain sections of the test, and administrators know by how much their school passed or failed meeting the requirements for No Child Left Behind. 

It is impossible in today’s society to avoid giving tests in the classroom altogether. Even if unit tests are not given, standardized tests, such as Virginia’s Standards of Learning, will have to be given at one time or another in a student’s career.  In order to prepare students in the best manner possible, I will assess students in my classroom using a mixture of formal and informal assessments – tests and projects, reports, journals, etc. While each student would receive a grade on assignments, as required in order to have evidence to support report cards, I will not simply provide students with raw numbers that have little to no meaning and an assignment they will never look at again.

 I will work to take the quantitative data and add a qualitative component, give the scores meaning to help overall achievement.  By providing students and parents with information about why the student received the grade they did and providing the opportunity to student to work learn from their errors to improve, students are more likely to succeed. Students will revisit their tests and assignments, edit/revise them (with support if needed!), and then resubmit them for a new grade. Students will not learn from their mistakes and improve if they are not given the opportunity to revisit their work.

A major challenge to having students revisit work is time. Since many standardized tests are given before the very end of the school year, teachers are under pressure to fit the large curriculum into a small amount of time that seems to shrink more and more with things like assemblies and snow days.  While revisiting work may seem impossible given the time constraints, correcting mistakes and diving deeper into thoughts will help better prepare students for tests like the SOLs. Instead of replicating their mistakes to the point of habit, they will hopefully be caught early and students can create good habits that can help them succeed on required tests.

As a teacher or administrator it is important to look at the breakdown of the scores and see where students are having difficulty. Focusing on these areas and the concepts that support these areas will help solve other problems in the classroom. Many topics build on one another, so if students struggle with one concept, they will continue to struggle and become frustrated as the year progresses. Addressing the needs of the student and spending the extra time to clarify information will help students be successful with the material and in an SOL-driven world.

It is important for parents, students, teachers, and administrators to work as a team. Assessing the needs of the learner using multiple methods, such as tests, projects, reports, etc. while providing appropriate feedback and the opportunity to improve gives the student motivation to revisit old work. Providing these opportunities and information should help students succeed and schools experience higher rates of passing students.