Tester

Hi everybody, I am attaching two papers I recently wrote for my Assessment module. Enjoy. ED 615 Mod 8 Assessment Philosophy Liam Breathnach   Whatever your personal feelings about assessment, it is an integral part of teaching. Assessment is the way a teacher gets information on how well the students have learned and can apply the material. It also gives vital information about how the teacher’s practices and methods are achieving the stated objectives in the class. Reflecting on this information and modifying future instruction where necessary, is very important in successful teaching. Students get an idea of what they know and what they still need to do. Parents and administrators also get feedback on the performance of the teachers and students (McMillan, 2008).   Assessment is very broad and occurs in every class. Formative assessment, such as questioning and worksheets, gives the teacher regular feedback on student knowledge and comprehension. Then summa...

Grading Wars... I was always a good, if unspectacular student, but most tests held little fear for me and I had a good relationship with teachers. So while I remember some occasions where I did not give my best, and got what I deserved, the experiences are mainly quite positive. But I clearly remember an occasion I was given back an Irish language essay one time to the line “now this is an example of how not to write an essay…”, exactly like a memory in the reading (Guskey, 2006). The fact that it is probably 25 years ago and I still remember the sinking feeling as the words that were read out were my own, does say something about the powerful effect we can have. It is a good lesson to learn, and a good experience to draw upon. As teachers we spend a large portion of the day speaking to impressionable students. Even a supposedly flippant remark, unfiltered, can be crushing. I definitely remember the embarrassment. And the rage. I do not have a particular case when I had a great...

Assessing all abilities… When I was in my late teens I used to go by a simple idea that everybody had an arbitrary number of skill units. These skill units were divided up in different ways for different people. Some people had a lot of skill units in book smarts but had not many skill units left for other areas, such as, and forgive the sweeping generalization, social ability or athletic ability. Others may have a solid level in many areas, and be skilled at many aspects of life. There are certainly flaws in this view, but I still appreciate the underlying tenet it had, that while I have my skills that others may not have, maybe they can draw, play the guitar or write poetry to a level that would leave me stupefied. Not difficult with these aforementioned talents by the way. I always try to appreciate the skills others have that I have not cultivated. I try to pass this idea on to my students when a moment arises. But to embrace my cynicism a little, you will encounter people w...

In a simple sense, the affective domain is the emotional impression made upon you by content, interactions or strategies in the classroom (Popham, 2009). It is what students feel about school learning and the content they learn (Hall, 2011). It is lovely to have beautiful lessons, sharp resources and great teaching ability but if students are not emotionally invested the learning will be flat. Affective domain is closely related to motivation and therefore is a vital part in learning (Hall 2011). Teachers need to be cognizant of how students feel about content in order to teach it in the most efficient way. Making content relevant is important to increase student curiosity and involvement. The literature we read is pretty uniform in its input on affective assessment, saying it is underused but it is a mistake to do so. The authors see it as a vital tool to gauge student’s feelings and background knowledge on a topic (Demetriou & Wilson, 2009) (Hall 201...

Tough to learn, tough to teach… Amazingly it is nearly half my lifetime since I finished my science degree. I did not have much trouble with the Chemistry in High School but I remember college Chemistry being a difficult time for me. This did carry through to the in depth Biochemistry. Also, as I freely admit to the students, I have good mental arithmetic but there are areas of Math I left behind me as soon as I could. To this day I use my process for powers and exponents. I am not sure why the biochemistry was an issue for me. The diagrams and flowcharts of processes should have been up my alley but I struggled to make them stick in my mind. The large classes and distant professors made help quite difficult but I did work with groups of friends in order to make progress. With the Mathematics, there were areas in which I worked well, but others I wanted to just get through. This continued in college when on a youthful whim I chose the honors Mathematics track. I neede...

  Assessments for me, Assessments by me… A little bit of background again. You will not see selected response tests in Ireland to anything like the degree you do in the US. The state exams tend to have a section which consisting of short constructed response and then sections with larger constructed response based around individual units of content. Also you should be aware I am a Scientist and I respond better to objective types of testing. I was never happy to have an essay to write. I wanted there to be a correct or incorrect answer where I did not have to get to creative or personal about things. I knew going into a science exam that with my good knowledge of facts, understanding of the content and the competence with the required skills I was going to score well. I was always very comfortable using labelled diagrams and flow charts enjoyed questions which allowed me to answer as such, as I used methods such as these in my own study. When I was ask...

Hi all. This week I was arguing for Standardized testing when that is not really the full story. I will start with a little bit of background. In Ireland we end up sitting a state exam, the Leaving Certificate, (Leaving Cert) at the end of your final year of Secondary School (High School). Students are not called Seniors, but Leaving Certs! In early June, Leaving Cert students come back to school, which has finished a couple of days previously, and over a couple of weeks will sit a 3 hour paper in all the subjects they are taking, and 2 papers in Math and English. The exams arrive in a sealed box and get taken away in a sealed box and are corrected by a host of teachers over the next weeks before the results are sent back to school in the middle of August. As a student, it was all I knew, and I had no issue with it. Everybody does it and therefore you can compare yourself with friends and family. It turns out my brother is the book smart one! ...