Elevator Speech on Assessment Philosophy

 

I believe that assessments are essential to education. Not only do they serve as a means of ascertaining how well lessons have been delivered, but they also provide a check of comprehension and mastery for the learners. Assessments can and have been used to check teachers’ efficiency in presenting learning content. Without assessments how could we find out if knowledge was actually imparted? How would we know that a teaching method/ strategy is the right one for a group of students? There are many more questions that we would be unable to answer if we did not have an assessment. Assessments are of different forms and types.

There are two types of assessment that may be administered. One is formative assessment which is a test that is given before, during, or after content has been taught. Formative assessments are given at the beginning or in the middle of a topic or unit. The results or data from these tests are used to ascertain how well students have learned what is required, and, when/ where necessary, what areas students need to be retaught. The other type is Summative Assessment. This is a test like the standardized test that is used to check understanding and mastery of content and is usually given at the end of the teaching, to assess what students have learned or mastered.

The most common type of assessment is standardized assessment which is an assessment or test that is administered and scored in a standardized way. This type of assessment is usually administered to multiple students, across districts, states, regions, and in some cases, nationally. The questions are scored using predetermined answers across the board. I think that standardized tests, while very useful, are heavily biased against students of minority and low-income backgrounds because they are designed for a specific target population (rich white males). Many teachers, myself included, do not like standardized test because of the single fact that it is used to assess a teacher’s competence, without taking into consideration the unique conditions that every teacher is faced with. Other types of assessments are classroom assessments that are created and administered by teachers. It is expected that these tests are tailored to be appropriate to the instructions that students have received and their observed testing preferences. It is important that teachers create tests that provide students with alternative testing methods so that students may find some question type that they are able to understand and do well in. It is important to ensure that questions have validity and reliability. A valid test accurately measures what it intends to measure, while a reliable test is one that has consistent scores over time.

Assessments or tests are as important as teaching or instruction. Assessments can often help improve student’s learning by providing consistent checks of their knowledge and academic growth. However, if assessments are unfair or biased they fail to accurately measure students’ progress and may, in some cases, discourage students. 

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