Assessment

Philosophy Statement

Assessment is to education as pitching is to baseball. You need the first, or
the second doesnt really seem to make sense. The similarities do not end there. Just
as there are many different variations on how to pitch and what pitches to throw
when, there are multiple variations on how and when to assess.

Why do we assess? The why is the easiest one to answer: to inform each in-
dividual student as to where they started and where they are at now while also in-
forming the teacher of where the students are at and how they should modify their
teaching. This philosophy statement will touch on more of these questions; such as
formative, summative and standardized assessment as well as my personal in-
formed opinion on the matter backed by some research.

Formative assessment

When students are given multiple chances to show that they actually know
the material, everyone wins. I believe this is a very controversial statement, but I
wish it was not. In formative assessment, we are assessing where students are at the
moment so we can track their progress and adapt the road ahead for them. It is
much more beneficial for the students to have multiple ways of showing their
knowledge during a unit than simply one summative test at the end. With the pit
stops along the way they themselves, along with the teacher, can check in to see if
the students are still on the right track or took the wrong turn somewhere. This is
where the detour comes in, as teachers should always be flexible to make sure each
student finds their path.

The two points out of this formative assessment paragraph that are the most
important are as follows. Yes, pit stops do signify that doing more formative assess-
ment will take more time in class and outside of class for the teacher. This is a small
price to pay in the long run though as a minor correction of path in week one of cre-
ative writing is much easier when some students are way out of their zone of proxi-
mal development and have given up by week four. The second point being that each
path should be flexible for students to get to their personal goals. If students are fo-
cused, they will hit the learning goals and believe in their I can statements much
more than if they were just chasing a grade.

Before getting to the chasing the grade statement, I believe it is very im-
portant to expand on the idea of flexibility for students. There are many ways flexi-
bility can be incorporated in the classroom. The first area that comes into mind is
how students choose to represent their learning. Giving students options on how
they would like to present their information not only allows for more fun in doing
assignments, but also opens up the ladder that is Blooms Taxonomy (Krathwohl,
213). If students can achieve higher order thinking they will process the information
more effectively than simply constantly writing tests. To accommodate for this flex-
ibility, I believe a portfolio system for each student is the best way to keep all of a
students work in one place and easy to call on students to show they met the out-
come.

Peer and Self-Assessment

Another area of flexibility in the classroom is who assesses the work. Teach-
ers can share the keys to the castle when it comes to assessment, as peer-
assessment and self-assessment are extremely strong tools if used properly. Peer-
assessment can be used to have multiple perspectives on something that needs as-
sessing, but also it provides the assessor a way to show that they know what they
are supposed to be looking for, making it a formative assessment in itself. Self-
assessment on the other hand allows for students to reflect on what work they did,
and also justify the mark they gave themselves. As it is mentioned in Making Class-
room Assessment Work(2011) When we have more time to think about our learn-
ing, we learn more (p.18). Reflection is a strong skill, to have not just in the class-
room but in life. The next skill that goes hand in hand with self-assessment is for
students to help create how they should be marked by working cohesively with the
teacher to develop rubrics, checklists and other assessment tools. Students will feel
a sense of ownership, which will in turn take more out of the project or assignment
they are working on but also have a much better understanding of what they should
touch on.

Summative Assessment

Chasing the grade was mentioned earlier, and it instantly raises some ques-
tions. Do grades belong in school? What will we do without them? How well will
students know they are doing? Although I already touched on some of these ques-
tions above; I will consider these questions in more depth while talking specifically
about summative assessment. Portfolios are a great way to track formative assess-
ment, but what do you do when we need to know if the students have reached the
desired learning outcomes. Formative portfolios are actually a viable answer to this
question as they can show over time their development and they do not need one
test to determine their fate. Project based learning for summative assessment is
what I agree with, as tests are a great way to learn but is not the best way to show
what you know. Projects and presentations also do not need to have time con-
straints whereas a test is done on one particular day. This ties into my belief that
there shouldnt be marks deducted for being late and also multiple opportunities to
hand these projects in. Students can learn from qualitative feedback in the com-
ments and continue to work on it instead of dumping the knowledge after it is been
completed or not caring about it after it is done. This practice also builds character
and effort, as students will learn to keep trying and persevering. I believe tests
should be approached the same way, as tests can be taken over again or more effec-
tively each test is an accumulation of knowledge throughout the year, which gives
students a larger timeframe to be educated on certain content and the chance to im-
prove.

 As Alfie Kohn states in The Case Against Grades, grades tend to diminish stu-
dents interest in whatever they are learning. This is important because what if the
student who wanted to get really creative didnt do so well the first time around in a
system that allows them to repeatedly hand in assignments? They would most likely
take the easy way out and get the better grade, and they would continue to do that
instead of working through the tougher project. I believe that grades are the most
constraining part of the educational system. I clearly stated that I believe in flexibil-
ity; therefore, I also believe grades have no part in our system anymore. There are
many ways to still see who are the smartest students and see if they met the out-
comes. Grades keep students in a box and although much easier than being flexible,
we are doing each student a disservice by labeling them with a grade.

Standardized Tests

I understand change happens slowly. I also understand there needs to be a
way to compare how our educational system is doing in the world. Standardized
testing allows for this to happen. This is why I believe tests should be used in some
subjects as it gives students the skills to write these standardized tests. The one part
I wholeheartedly disagree with, however, is the amount of standardized tests that
are used and the uses for them. As Alfie Kohn writes in, The case against standard-
ized testing, how exams were used as a form of formative assessment to see where
students needed help and how now they are used to judge students, teachers and
schools as well as putting students into certain groups based on their scores on one
assessment. Yes, standardized tests can be useful if used correctly, but they can also
be detrimental if used to deny students entrance into certain universities or pro-
grams.

To conclude, I believe that giving the students the best chance to succeed is
the purpose of assessment. Flexibility is the key to this as it permits the students to
gain control over their education, be more invested and actually love learning in-
stead of it being something that needs to be done. If we can switch the way we as-
sess students, we can create generations of life long learners that educate them-
selves because they want to. Instead of training students to just hit a fastball and
then throwing in a few curveballs we should let students experience everything so
when it comes time they can hit anything out of the park.












Davies, A. (2011). Making classroom assessment work. Solution Tree. 555
North Morton Street, Bloomington, IN 47404.


Kohn, A. (2011). The case against grades. Educational Leadership, 69(3),
28-33.

Kohn, A. (2000). The case against standardized testing: Raising the

scores, ruining the schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom's taxonomy: An overview.

Theory into practice, 41(4), 212-218.