Deborah Calabrese EDU 530 Assessment and Evaluation Reflective Journal Assignment #5 Due: July 27, 2012

Too often, we tell students what they should know and think. Too often we make the serious business of the classroom a kind of decanting where we pour information, however gently, into their minds. NAIS journal, Independent School, Spring, 2011. Page 85. I couldnt agree with this statement more. Looking back at my own personal educational experience, I was a product of decanted thinking. In the 1970s and 1980s if a student didnt come to the same conclusion or answer required by the teacher, the student was wrong. At times, my thoughts and ideas were considered to be invalid by the teachers standards. This impacted my educational journey in such a negative manner. Yet, having experienced this method of teaching has only reiterated to me the importance of creating a journey of world and self-discovery for my students. I strongly believe that it is vital to support students while they are making their own discoveries. I also believe that it is imperative to let students know why the skills learned are crucial to their education. Wiggins and McTighe solidify my belief when they state: The learner should come to the understanding of the skills underlying concepts, why the skill is important and what it helps us accomplish, what strategies and techniques maximize its effectiveness, and when to use them (2005, pg. 133). At times, educators expect students to automatically make the connection between how and why, but too often students dont. Teachers should act as a guide

to facilitate learning while allowing students to make sense of what they are learning authentically. Students should be led to the outcomes of learning through guided and supportive instruction. Students need to make good sense of what they learn (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, pg. 105) in order to apply the skills learned to new situations while. Furthermore, Wiggins and McTighe make this point clear when they explain, Schooling must enable students to be on the inside of how understandings are born, tested, and solidified through inquiry, criticism, and verification. Our students need a curriculum that treats them more like potential performers than sideline observers (pg. 122). This can only be done when teachers create an environment that fosters supportive authentic learning through exploration. A mere transfer through decanting information does not lead to application, only memorization. Students not only need to be able to make these discoveries and connections in an authentic manner, they need to be able to verbalize or display how and why they arrived at a particular conclusion or result. Students should be able to support their opinions and the teachers assessments or evaluations should be mindful of measuring them. This leads to questioning of standardized tests. A standardized test is used to measure learning, but it only measures standard or decanted learning. Assessments need to measure skills that can be integrated across disciplines through a multitude of ways: observations, applications, evaluations, and portfolios. These provide a better picture of not only what a student has learned, but how they utilized what they learned. Utilization of knowledge is the most accurate assessment of learned skills.

Using Blooms pyramid of Taxonomy as a guide to classify learning skills, the process of decanting knowledge would fall into the lowest block of Blooms pyramid: knowledge. This is where basic recall and identification fall and this is not where I want my students learning to end. Knowledge is only the beginning. I want to make sure my students get to the top of Blooms pyramid where they can apply their knowledge through analysis and evaluation to create new understandings. They cannot achieve this if I decant the information for them, and for this reason, I am determined to facilitate the journey of self-discovery for my students while coaching them to the top of Blooms pyramid. References Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD).