Rebecca Anguiano

Education 1010
Philosophy of Assessment
4/25/16
When looking back at my field experience hours, I can distinctly remember seeing the
first year teachers not checking for understanding as often as I thought they should have.
Compared to the veteran teachers, there wasnt any other form of assessment other than asking
the students to review with a peer next to them or summarize for the class. These were the kind
of observations that lead me to build up my own opinions and thoughts on ways, I believe,
assessments can be managed from my own perspective.
In an earlier philosophy of mine, I mentioned that with a big part of being a Progressivist,
comes constructivism. Because my supposed teaching methods would involve constructivism,
this would mean I would I always be using open ended questions to make sense of the lesson,
whether it would be me asking the questions or the students. This happens to be one of the ways
I plan on checking for understanding. While I teach my lesson, it is really important for me to
make sure what I am saying actually makes sense and by doing that I plan on using a technique
one of my high school teachers used for my class. This technique is called the question game.
My high school teacher would often use this method when she wanted the whole class to
participate and most importantly make sure were all awake and attentive on long lecture days.
The trick is to divide your students up into tables of four or five and explain that the table to ask
the most questions in a month, will win a reward. Now, because of this I would have to take into
account that the students cant just ask any question, I would have to explain the certain things
can make up a really well open ended question. My high school teacher made it so there was
such things as a level one question, being a very simple and not so complex question. There were
level two questions, where the questions began to get more complicated, and finally level three
questions. These were questions even the teacher could not find an answer for. The point of all of
this is to make sure all the students are participating and learning to ask all the right questions,
and all for their own good. Although rewards can vary, and I dont necessarily have to do it the
way my high school teacher did it, but the purpose of it all is to be able to help each other as a
class and most likely have the class learn together. As simple as it sounds, questioning is one the
most essential parts to making sure your students are understanding your learning objectives. I
just plan on using this specific technique to help make students cooperate with each other, help
each other, and learn, all while having some fun doing it.
Being the Progressivist that I am, there is nothing like showing how the real world works
than by using group work. Like mentioned before, I believe that group learning is essential for
learning how to work through problems together and learning together in general. These are
actually some of the qualities many students would need as they enter the work field in the
future, so why not help them get started on that as soon as possible. By doing this, I plan on
having a lot of group reviews. After I give my lesson, this is one way I can see if students
understand the content by answering a review quiz as a table, or have them teach each other by
using the Jigsaw method, or even group presentations. As far as not doing things in groups, I

can always do the same thing, just choosing sticks or calling on separate students to have them
walk the rest of the class through a topic. These students can always call on other students if they
get stuck, as long as the students help each other come to an understanding of the subject.
With that being said, there might be days where I would like to see students understand
my lessons independently. Using groups can have a negative effect when students rely on the
other students to answer or they would simply copy from one another. It is important to observe
students as their own person and not always as a whole. After all, my teaching beliefs require
that I relate things to the real world as much as possible for now. Aside from looking over the
students homework, I plan on using quick review quizzes. Whether I decide to use these
quizzes as a part of their grade or not, I dont intend on making them any more stressful than
regular tests. This mini-test can easily be applied as soon as I finish teaching a subject with no
more than five questions, or can be handed out the next day to remind the students what learned.
Other methods of assessment include, At the bell assignments where the students answer
questions from the day before as they wait for class to begin, or even using journal entries before
or after class. These journal entries can be useful in various ways such as, having the students
summarize the lesson for that specific day or the day before, it can help improve their writing
skills and grammar, and it can help them learn how to right a good sizable amount in little time.
And finally, the last form of assessment would be end of the term testing, where understanding
can be checked through short responses, matching, filling in the bubbles, and showing work.
Overall, because of my Progressive and Constructive methods of teaching the way I plan
on assessing my students may require a lot cooperative learning. Through my teaching
observations, I came to realize how much I actually prefer many forms of checking for
understanding, especially when it involves working in groups. The first year teachers helped me
see that having various ways for checking understanding can be very beneficial not just for the
class but for myself. I can use assessment to evaluate myself and improve my teaching skills
overtime, if the students need help comprehending content. Various assessments can help keep
students motivated and attentive in class and most importantly developing skills to work with
others. If I somehow stick with this philosophy of education in my teaching future, I plan to use
these different methods to help increase the achievement of my students. My main goal would be
to use real world applications as a part of my teaching, and theres nothing more essential to that
than having students learn to work together solve problems as a class, while making sure
everything I happen to teach is making sense.