Caitlin Snider

16 July 2017
EDF 4430
Professor Cain
Task 7
Portfolio Reflection and Assessment Statement
Section A: Portfolio Reflection
1. Discuss your overall growth and development concerning
assessment throughout this semester. What have you
learned? What do you still struggle with? What has
changed about the way you think about assessment?
Over the course of this semester I have grown immensely in terms of
assessment in my thoughts, actions and beliefs. Before this semester I never had
the experience to make an assessment for my students. I also had no idea how
to make an efficient assessment. We did however do one assignment before this
semester using Blooms Taxonomy. I was still not comfortable in using it, but after
this class I really feel that I understand how to make questions based off of the
different levels.
I have really struggled with how to make an assessment for younger students.
For me it was extremely hard to even begin to make one that contained easy

questions. Then when making easy questions, I found that I was only creating
remembering level questions and not anything higher. As I struggled even further
with Task 4 I really became discouraged that I could not make an assessment.
It was not until I read the article Putting Blooms Taxonomy into Practice, that I
really began to understand just how to make an assessment fit for kindergarten
and first grade. I honestly thought that making an assessment with Blooms for
kindergarten was going to be unfeasible, but after giving the article a read over
the teacher said, it was not such an insurmountable task (Cosmato, D. &
Pastsalides, L. 2015). The article broke up the Blooms pyramid into questions
that were built for the age group that I was making the assessment on and I
started to feel better about the situation. By the time I finished reading the article I
realized its okay if you do not cover all of the Blooms Taxonomy levels and that
sometimes we need constructive criticism to open our eyes. I really believe that
my second time around making Task 4 ended up being a lot better than the first
one, because this time around I actually understood what I was doing.
One other thing that I learned is that you should not use humor on an
assessment, because it can confuse the student. I tend to joke around to put the
students at ease and to try to make my students laugh, but after listening to one

of the power points I realized that using humor can distract students often
causing them to select the wrong answer.
The biggest thing I took away from this class was that I have the ability to
create an assessment for my students. As someone who has test anxiety making
an assessment for my students also gives me anxiety and at times Im less
confident in creating something that I would give my students. I felt insecure,
because I did not know how to accomplish an assessment myself. After this
semester and receiving the feedback that I did, I was able to go back and really
understand how to make an assessment that was above the remembering level
for younger students.

Section B: Assessment Statement

1. What are your general beliefs and philosophies about
assessment? How do your beliefs around assessment
integrate into your general teaching philosophies? What
are some areas that you feel strongly about in terms of
assessment?

When hearing the word assessment most people, including myself, run and
hide. It was not until I entered the Elementary Education program that I

discovered that the word assessment does not necessarily mean a test. An
assessment can come from any variety of things (posters, papers, songs, skits,
projects, etc.) that prove your students are learning the content.
My own personal belief about assessments is to make sure all of my students
are prepared for them. As a student who struggles with test anxiety it is important
for me to have my students ready for the assessment so that they can walk out of
it going, "hey that was easy!" I don't want any of my students sick with fear and
being stressed walking into class, because they have a fear of some test that
does not define them.
As far as my teaching philosophy goes, assessments in test are
unavoidable and students will get nervous about them. Ways to make the
environment easier for students is to make sure that I review the content each
day. We will go over what we learned the day before the test just to refresh their
minds. Its imperative to me to make sure the students are ready for the reviews
as well. I do not want to trick or confuse my students by including things that
wont be in the actual test, which is the practice of many teachers. To me one of
the worst things that can happen is a teacher gives the students a review and
then test them on completely different content. That to me is unjust and unfair.
One area that I feel extremely strong about is that there should not be one

standardized test for all students. Every student is in a different walk in their life
when it comes to skills. That goes between native English Speakers, ELL
student, ESOL students, and even from rural to urban students. Words can
stand for so many different things depending on the culture. No two students are
the same so why do we create a test that could make or break a students
schooling in only one format.
Another thing that I saw in schools this year was that students in the
younger grades were given standardized tests. I watched my first graders
scheduled to take a test right after lunch (during their recess time) resulting in the
children not eating because they were so apprehensive. I don't think we should
pressure the younger students to take such a heavily weighed test that can be
compared to the FCAT. We are pulling our students away from their needs for
their age by focusing more on the academics of school.

References:
Cosmato, D., & Patsalides, L. (2015, August 26). Using blooms taxonomy
for teachers, with a kindergarten classroom as an example.
Retrieved July 20, 2016, from,
http://www.brighthubeducation.com/teaching-methods-tips/3648-using-thenew-blooms-taxonomy-kindergarten-classroom-example/