Statement of Assessment Philosophy

Shuting Shen

Colorado State University

 Statement of Assessment Philosophy

Assessment refers to various methods used by teachers to evaluate, measure and record

academic preparation, learning progress, skill acquisition or educational needs of students.

Teaching and learning are interdependent and interactive processes. Assessment involves how

students learn and how teachers teach (Kellough & Kellough, 2003). As an English teacher, I

believe using various assessment methods and techniques to help me collect valuable

information about students’ progress can enable me to make inferences about students’ abilities.

In addition, the assessment that can achieve the expected teaching purpose and student’s needs

can become an effective assessment. Formative assessment and summative assessment are two

assessments that I think are effective in my English teaching and learning.

To promote my students’ learning, I use different forms of formative assessment to assess

my students, such as self-evaluation, quiz or observation. Formative assessment usually refers to

all the activities implemented by teachers and the activities carried out by students in the

evaluation of themselves. These activities provide feedback information to enable teachers to

change teaching activities (Black & William, 1998). When I use the formative assessment, I can

evaluate students’ interest, attitude and participation in the learning process through a variety of

evaluation methods, and make a judgment and affirmation of their language development status.

It not only improves my students’ enthusiasm, but also cultivates their independent learning

ability and self-evaluation ability.

A summative assessment is another important way in which I assess how well my

students are doing at the end of a particular teaching period, usually at the end of a unit, course,

semester, or school year, such as midterm exams, chapter tests or final portfolio. When I make

students to finish the final exams of various subjects at the end of semester, it enables me
determine whether students have learned what they should have learned during the prescribed

teaching period. Since the summative assessment takes place after every few weeks, months, or

years of teaching, it can help me assess the effectiveness of the project, course improvement

goals, or course schedule.

When I planning the assessment, I should consider the reliability, validity and practicality.

The validity of a test is the scope of the test, and it precisely measures what it should measure

(Hughes, 2003). To ensure my assessments have a high content validity, I should clearly know

what I’m assessing by matching my assessment goals with the assessment tools. To make a

certain of my assessment is reliable, the results of my assessments should be consistent no matter

when I give it. For practicality, my assessment and its procedures should be fairly simple to use

and take only a small amount of time to administer and score.

Whether in my past studies or in future teaching, I believe that a combination of

formative assessment and summative assessment is the most appropriate and effective

assessment. One focuses on the process, the other on the results. I believe these two assessments

can also complement each other. As a teacher, my assessment will focus on students’ progress in

the learning process and discover their shortcomings and strengths through their final scores. I

will use formative assessment in all aspects of the teaching process, such as classroom teaching,

homework or tests. Through students’ self-evaluation and mutual communication between

teachers and students, students can find problems in learning and discover students strengthen

and improve their self-confidence and learning motivation.

 References

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in

Education: principles, policy & practice, 5(1), 7-74.

Hughes, A. (2003). Testing for language teachers. Ernst Klett Sprachen.

Kellough, R. D., & Kellough, N. G. (2003). Secondary school teaching: A guide to

methods and resources. Merrill Prentice Hall.