"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid" - Albert Einstein
The way in which we conduct assessments in schools is one of the many ways the education system has changed in the 21st century. Measuring a child's intelligence strictly by their ability to hand in a piece of work that has robust guidelines is an outdated and ineffective way to measure student success. What about the student who is intelligent, but not engaged? The student who excels in one subject area, but not another? The student who has great work ethic, but marks do not reflect this. This form of assessment does not take into account a wider range of student skills and promotes the tragedy of lost potential in students.
Growing success highlights this change in assessment through the emphasized importance on work habits and learning skills. It is not the outcome that matters, but rather the process to promote assessment of and as learning. This is especially important for the student whom you have no work collected for. Keeping a record of anecdotal assessment notes is imperative to understand where the student excels, struggles and will help to determine where to go next in order to create sufficient evidence for their report card.
This can further be seen in Growing Success, where a student is on an IEP with alternative learning expectations. For such students, it is not advisable to even provide a percentage grade for their work, but rather the focus us on their growth as an individual.
Building character in students by emphasizing importance of work habits and learning skills has also become pivotal in student learning. Students who show initiative, effective collaboration skills, self regulation are becoming effective learners. Such skills are important as a stepping stone for students to achieve success in their educational careers.
There are, what seems like a thousand, ways to assess student's ability. If a student is not performing well on tests and as previously stated, not handing in work, the teacher mst elicit information about that students learning.
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