Sam Tidd

Educ 5913
Measurement and Evaluation
February 28 2017
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Philosophy of Assessment and Evaluation

It is assumed that the primary role of an effective teacher is to lesson plan. Assessment is

regarded as a final action that indicates the level of learning that a student achieves. But

assessment is far more than an evaluative tool, it is the essential guide to instruction and learning

that influences the teacher's next steps in the classroom. When formative assessments are done

correctly, they are the indicator that signals when students are ready for summative evaluations.

By giving students constructive feedback, students are able to reflect more specifically on what

they did well and on what they can improve on going forward; feedback is tool which helps to

individualized learning. Formative assessments will be the guiding force in my classroom that

lets me know if my lessons are effective, tells me what lessons I might want to change or re-do,

and dictates when students are ready and prepared for required summative evaluations.

Assessment is a necessary part of learning that informs students goal setting, evaluates

student knowledge, and helps guide students decisions regarding how they might proceed

regarding future tasks. Giving summative grades is the simplest, but not necessarily the most

effective, way of letting students know how they are doing achieving curriculum outcomes.

Grades must be used purposefully and never to control student behavior or they may be

demotivating to students. Alfie Kohn (Kohn, 1993) explains that when you turn grades into a

system of rewards or punishments, student learning suffers for all students, but particularly for

students who have behavioral difficulties. For example, giving marks for attendance or taking

marks off for poor attitudes, etc., will have adverse effects on a potentially already disengaged
student; punishing the students behavior by taking away behavior marks from the assignment

they completed, he or she will most likely care less about learning, and stop completing work

since she is arbitrarily being penalized. On the contrary, if a student who behaves poorly and

often misses classes passes in an assignment and is graded fairly based on hitting goals outlined

in the assignment and given constructive feedback related to the content of the assignment only,

the achievement/grade may motivate that student to pass in another assignment and engage more

deeply in the learning. Academic success for a student who has behavior issues, can sometimes

lessen the behaviors severity or frequency. While Kohn thinks that any letter or number grade

can be damaging to student learning because the number itself is inherently a reward or

punishment, I think it is possible to blend summative assessment with formative assessment in

order to make sure that students are prepared for summative assessments.

With formative assessments there is almost always no mark attached. The way I thought

of formative assessments in my practicum is similar to a checkpoint: formative assessment is an

opportunity for educators to pull their student over, see how they are doing, and then decide if

they are free to go, or if they need something else from the student. Airasian et al. (2007)

explains that the purpose of formative assessment is to gather evidence of student learning in

order to effectively lesson plan to meet the needs of all students. If students are not learning what

you are teaching, something needs to change. Some ways that I have formatively assessed in my

practicum was by assigning exit slips before the class ends, or by getting my students to write

down how they feel about the content they are learning.

One of my favorite ways to teach a lesson is by using the I do, we do, you do

technique. When I am introducing a new topic, I explain its details and proceed to model it in an

activity. First, I model the task for my students. Then, I invite the class to help me with the
second example as a group. With the third example, the students complete the activity

individually. This activity is collected, handed in, and assessed formatively so that I can see if my

lesson was effective. I find this technique coupled with formative assessment very helpful in

directing my teaching. Experienced and inexperienced teachers alike may not always be able to

judge what tasks students will find difficult, so formative assessment activities are needed in

order to best serve all students by directing the teacher in his/her lesson planning going forward.

Students should always regard the classroom as a pathway to success which is why I will

continue to invite my students to re-submit tests and projects. In preparation for mandatory

provincial standardized tests, I will make sure my students are not seeing this kind of assessment

for the first time. When I worked as an Educational Assistant in Alberta, we would use old

provincial assessments for Math practice sheets. Students would work in teams to complete

certain sections of old tests; this way they were not simply individually completing work sheets;

they were working together to achieve a common goal. We would go over each question as a

class and discuss the areas of confusion that each group met and where mistakes were made. This

way, my students were very familiar with standardized tests which helped to ease anxiety and it

prepared them for the types of questions they would see on provincial assessments.

Learning does not always successfully happen at arbitrary times/deadlines. More

importantly, learning happens by making mistakes. By not allowing students to perfect their

learning by fixing their mistakes, they are not learning to their full potential and they may even

grow to resent their assignments. (Wormeli, 2011). Students should never feel like their learning

has limits; unnecessary constraints can condition students to feel hopeless. By allowing

flexibility in my classroom I will create an environment that embraces mistakes as learning

opportunities; I hope that this supports my students in building their confidence so that they are
willing and daring to take risks in their learning. Perfection does not lead to discovery,

overcoming errors does.

Great teachers are not simply masters of delivering information; they are knowledgeable

in many areas of assessment, differentiation, and possess the flexibility required to tailor their

teaching to their ever changing audiences. In my classroom, through feedback, reflections, and

learning how to embrace errors with leniency, my students will grow more confidently, take

more risks, and engage more deeply in their learning.

References:

Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards. (pp. 48-67). New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Al-Abdali, N. S., & Al-Balushi, S. M. (July 01, 2016). Teaching for Creativity by Science

Teachers in Grades 5-10. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 14, 2,

251-268.

Wormeli, R. (2011). Redos and retakes done right. Effective Grading Practices, 69(3), 22-26.