domingo, 26 de mayo de 2013

The meaning of numbers



retrieved from: co.aiesec.org assessment.gif
Approaches, theories, and methods have increased as well as the challenge for learning. But, how to measure the English store of learning reached? The word that immediately comes to our mind is assessment, and it is not a misconception to think about that word if we consider that our educational environment is full of evaluations, tests, quizzes and some others assessment tools. It is then important to present assessment and testing as different terms in meaning instead of presented them as synonyms. Assessment is an urgent part of any educational process as it determines whether standards to ensure the objectives been met. Educational assessment affects to make decisions about the effectiveness of curriculum, policies, syllabus and textbooks and in some cases, funding. As Scanlan (2012) stated, assessment helps teachers answer crucial questions in order to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching practice. Educators must take active responsibilities such as, raising serious questions about what they teach, and how they teach. Accomplishment is not the only signaled by the completion of the unit, but also by the extent to which students have engaged with the topic at hand. This entry argues that a distinction should be made between impact assessment and evaluation and that the role of positivist approaches is best conceived of as contributing to the former. 

Retrieved from: web.trinity.edu images
There are two main reasons that assessment is necessary in learning: First, accountability, which means that many teachers still have the challenge of external pressures to give students a grade. It is think that teachers may have been a group of generator of grades rather than a meaningful process of education, to being able to report students and to be reported by the Minister of Education with the standardized test (Saber-Pro). Moreover, provide solid experience and results to the prospective students. To summarize, acquire reputation. Notably, positivist logic inferences are in favored in these discussions. A child’s behavior may be affected by extenuating circumstances. We have to belong and labeled to a certain category or group, In all cases, we should not pay more attention to the meaning of the number, instead of paying attention at the learning process.  Second, program improvement, once assessments are complete the results are evaluated to determined how well student learning outcomes. If the goals are complete and which ones need to be revised. Testing are being using to measure how much of the assigned materials students are mastering, how well student are learning materials, and how well student are meeting the stated goals and objectives. [1] Education should serve to liberate and promote opportunity for all of us. All of this got it hard to smarter consumers who are looking for academic excellence. Therefore, assessment must fulfill several purposes. 

retrieved from: www.palmbeachschools.org 
AssessmentLogotest_002.gif
To conclude, assessment is an ongoing process developed along any learning course which allows the instructor or teacher to observe the learner’s achievements, improvement and performance (Brown, 2003). For carry out this process, teachers should use different tools such as journals, tests, quizzes, portfolios, blogs, etc can be used. It suggests that testing is a component of the assessment process, and a test is a tool used by teachers for assessing general or specific aspects of learners’ performance in a determine domain (Brown, 2003). As educators, we have the responsibility to become more effective teacher not offering definitive answers to questions, but rather than providing new insights into teaching and learning process, and explore deeper into the students' mind in order to generate critical thinking. I truly believe that we have to face the way of seen the world from different points of view without escaping from the reality, one's reality. As Chandra Mohanty (2001) states, pedagogy is not only about the act of knowing, but also about how knowledge related into the power itself. [2]


[1] Differences between Testing, Assessment, and Evaluation. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://istudy.psu.edu/tutorials/testing/TestingAssessment2.html
[2] Henry A. Giroux | The War Against Teachers as Public ... (n.d.). Retrieved from http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13367-the-corporate-war-against-teachers-as-pu
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4 comentarios:

  1. Unknown27 de mayo de 2013, 3:31 p.m.

    yes, assessment seeks to improve performance through feedback and that is something that we ud techers should pay more attention to. Sometimes we focus on one specific aspect to grade but I learned after readind Brown (2000) that student´s processes should be taken into account, background and conditions should be taking into account when assessing to be fair and to help the student to find a way to improve their weaknesses and to master their strengths.

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  2. Unknown28 de mayo de 2013, 8:13 p.m.

    Absolutely true! I am so excited about this topic and I do support your idea of changing the point of view towards assessment. I think that for many years, in Colombia for example, teachers have been mistaking when thinking that assessment is just giving a number to a student and labeling them into categories. This new teachers generation has the mission to change this paradigm, starting to consider all those many factors that can affect ones, as human being, when being assess in any field.

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  3. César Cristancho28 de mayo de 2013, 9:05 p.m.

    Great, Yulian! I agree with you regarding that assessment involves teaching and learning processes. All of the issues and every single person related to education matter and should be considered, evaluated and asssessed. First of all, we, teachers, must be in charge of pondering our pedagogical ideologies, our perfomance, our activities, our class, our tests and our informal assessment in order to become critical and reflective teachers, changing our persepctives and impacting our students. Moreover, it is compulsory to think over the policies, the text books and the rules for teacing and learning languages so we can critically act against all of the absurd demands on eduaction made by policy makers and people that have nothing to do with our educational realm but who make paramount decisions on language teaching and education and affect more our system.

    Furthermore, students are the most predominant actors in education since they are to be the center in contemporary educational scope. In order to fullfill so, we have to focus on students' needs and adapt our classes to their sociocultural contexts. That is why it is mandatory to apply alternative ways of assessment so that we can provide accurate atmospheres where students are active participants, learn meaningfully and get an accurate assesment, helping their affective filter lower and their imagination and creativity bloom.

    Finally, other actors can be taken into account in education and these are parents. In our Colombian context, parents are supposed to give support to their children on education. The matter is when teachers force students do exuberant tasks or homework that can only be made by parents. Instead of catalizing the motivation to learn, what parents do in these crucial moments is to spoil children and to become the responsible of fulfilling the tasks as they were the students. In other situations, a mayhem is latent. But the roll of parents in education should be a guide, a prompter, the first educator of our children.

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  4. Unknown1 de junio de 2013, 7:27 p.m.

    Thanks a lot guys for your observations, I just want to say that in the beginning assessment was easy students pass or fail, make it or not. Then, formal education experts create final exams, standardized test, exams, quizzes, multiple choice and so on, teachers test student to see if they learn then, we assess their own effectiveness as teachers through anecdotal questionaries, and subjective end of the semester survey. This might have been enough when we are graduating high school, and college, to take predictable paths, jobs, technocratic positions; where people never change careers or never used new skills. Nevertheless, today students and educators are part of the changing world the twenty-first century learners must be able to synthesize knowledge, will need to speak at least three languages, communicate in an intelligible accent, conserved their identity, idiosyncrasy, and most importantly create a solution to problems that we do not exactly the solution. It means students need to personalized, engaged and use useful feedback. Also, teacher has to understand that assessment is two way communication form, the students are often receiving feedback by teaching practice, and we have given feedback on the learning process. Assessment is about to make the student better, to cover their learning goal, to succeed in the education process. That is why we call assessment for Learning. Moreover, the teacher has to understand is that each student is part of the class, and the teacher can not compare his or her process with other student. What the students need is a meaningful feedback. Not multiple-choice exams or unexplained letter grades, so your students need a significant feedback so they can become learners not simple graduates.

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