Digital Blog Post #J

While reading Chapter 11 Engaging Students in Performance Assessment and Reflective Learning, I received a bunch of information on the role of assessments in teaching and learning. As a senior in high school currently, I am not a big fan of standardized testing especially when they determine a bunch of factors such as graduation, college acceptance, and even scholarships. However, after reading this paragraph on the role of assessments I see the advantages and the disadvantages. For instance, one of the roles are new teacher assessments which is how the supervisors will assess the work for the teacher. This meaning that before a teacher accepts a full-time job in the teaching profession there are certain standards that have to be met. The new teacher has to pass a state teacher license and go through observations and training. I agree with these type of assessments because a person should not be thrown into a classroom full of children without any standards. Just because someone went to college does not mean they actually learned or absorbed the information. Also, book work is different than real life experiences. A new teacher should be observed teaching into a classroom and trained in a classroom because the experience is totally different than reading about the experience in the textbook. The second role is student assessment which shows the effectiveness as a teacher. On the down fall, I disagree with this because a teacher can not prevent if a student wants to learn or not. It is irrelevant if the teacher is great or not, some students are either not good test takers due to anxiety or just do not want to learn. I also disagree with how tests and assessments can determine major aspects in the profession such as salary and the job itself. However, it is also important to make sure that the students are learning what they are supposed to and it is important to keep all schools at a standard. This topic is very controversial which shocked me because before this chapter I was unaware on the positives of assessments. The last role that was described in this paragraph is student self-assessment. Whether the student is taking a state exam or a classroom test, a student should be active in their own learning. This allows the children to be on track with what they need to know and what they already know. All in all, assessments have positives and negatives.

Rather than the teacher running the classroom there are democratic schools and classrooms which I have never heard of until this chapter. Democratic schools and classrooms are places where students and teachers work together to make decisions about how the learning in the classroom happens and how evaluation is conducted. As said above, before this chapter I was unaware of these type of classrooms and schools however the idea at first seemed scary but after thinking about how that would work I began to enjoy that idea. The curriculum and assessing the students successfully is still responsible for the teachers but how they will be assessed and how they will learn is discussed among the students and teachers. In my opinion, incorporating the students into their own learning. Also, with the students discussing how the material will be taught will only help them learn more. After all, the students are the ones who are ideally supposed to be absorbing this information so why not allow them to pick the best ways that they learn. Teachers are working hand in hand with the students which does not only create a enjoyable classroom but creates a small family. Instead of the teachers just looking at her class as students learning or the students just looking at her teacher as a teacher, they are working in union to create a better learning atmosphere. However, there is a down fall to this because the students will pick little homework, spend lots of time in groups and select few hard problems to solve but the teachers still have a say which requires them to negotiate which means the teacher should not allow the students to pick such little homework and group work all day everyday. All in all, the democratic schools and classrooms is an interesting thought that could be beneficial in regard to student learning and teaching.

Teachers need to incorporate pre-assessments, prior knowledge-based learning and online surveys into their lessons. In the past I have had some teachers who have used these techniques. Pre-assessments are introducing a new lesson, topic, or unit to determine what students need to know or what they already know. Most of my prior teachers used pretests to determine what the students need to know or what they already know. This is a really good technique because a teacher will know what lessons need to be more focused on and what lessons just need to be reviewed. This can save time and can stop students from being bored in lessons because they already know the material. Prior-knowledged based learning go hand and hand to pre-assessments because prior-knowledged based learning is when the teacher incorporates what the students already know not their new concepts. This helps the students remember the information and it also helps the students in reviewing. Reviewing past concepts will only help them actually absorb the information rather than learning about a concept, studying it for the test and then forgetting about the concept after the test. Some of my prior teachers would incorporated material that we already knew on current tests just so the class would keep remembering the information. Online surveys are also very helpful. An online survey is a poll that is delivered online. This helps teachers receive data about the students progress and learning. Fortunately, students like online surveys because there are not right and wrong answers, it is simply reflection. For this technique not many of my past teachers have used however some of the did in regards to how well we learned the topic and how comfortable we are with the topic. I think online surveys would be extremely helpful because the students feel heard and they are collaborating. Students are not the only ones learning, teachers also learn from the students so online surveying is a great reflection on how well the materials the teacher used work and what the teacher needs to do differently next time. 

Below I have created a Canva on the numbers of assessments to demonstrate how important it is to assess students since testing is a huge role in their learning.


References:
Website- Bowman, S. (2014, March 30). Latest breaking news from Hilton Head & Beaufort, SC | The Island Packet. Retrieved March 26, 2015, from http://www.islandpacket.com/2014/03/30/3026373/education-testing-day-2.html

Textbook - Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc