Wednesday 23 September 2015

Traditional Assessment Concerns




 
Sternberg, B. (2012, December 3). None of the Above- Why Standardized Testing Fails: Bob Sternberg at TEDxOStateU. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otlmKZeNi-U

          I’d like to share why I feel it is important to change how students are assessed in the majority of North American High Schools. Currently, assessment of the formal curriculum, outlined by the provincial Ministry of Education, continues to reflect a traditional grading system that involves students competing for academic grades that will either allow or deny them access to scholarships and higher education. This implies that knowledge can be measured quantitatively and that a student's test result can indicate a final judgment of their academic potential (Drake, Kolohon, & Reid, 2014).  For example, grades influence whether students are streamed into academic or applied leaning groups that, according to DiAngelo and Sensoy (2014), create self-fulfilling prophecies of self-worth and academic potential. Unfortunately, I don’t feel that this is an accurate representation of student success or diversity.

Rahim, Sameer. (2010, June 11) English Examination: Have they got easier? Web. 22 Sept 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7817602/English-Examinations-Have-they-got-easier.html

         I’m sure you can recall a time when you were up late the night before an exam, trying to memorize as many definitions and equations as possible. For me, this was before my grade 12 Biology exam. I was extremely nervous because my mark on the exam would determine whether or not I would receive a significant scholarship from a University. This story ended happily for me as I did well on the exam however, the test was not a fair judgement of my understandings of the course. If asked to write the same exam a week later, I probably would have failed. The point to this story is that the test didn’t actually measure how well I knew the course content; the exam measured how well I could memorize equations and predict the formulas that would be tested. In reality, students have strengths and weaknesses that cannot be evaluated solely through hand-written tests.

Kumar, Radiant. (2012, Dec 26) Left Brain VS Right Brain. Web. 22 Sept 2015. Retrieved from: http://theonshoreworld.blogspot.ca/2012/12/left-brain-vs-right-brain_26.html
          I tutored a grade 9 student with a Learning Disability who was reading at a grade 3 level. Although he struggled with reading, he had an incredible vocabulary and a very creative mind. Students with Learning Disabilities often struggle academically and it’s not because they are any more or less intelligent. They simply learn and express information differently. This is why I feel it’s necessary to adapt assessments to cater to different groups of learners. This links to a discussion about equity and how students should receive the same opportunities to succeed based on personal learning needs (Verstegen, 2015). For example, students should have opportunities to showcase their understandings through multiple means such as presentations, projects, verbal and written assessments. Furthermore, rather than asking specific questions with one right or wrong answer, perhaps evaluations should be more open-ended, allowing for students to express what they do know about the content. The final clip furthers this thinking by touching on the importance of assessment being consistent, accurate, meaningful and supportive.
                                                                                    
O'Connor, K. (2011, June 3). Solution Tree: Ken O'Connor on Grading Effectively. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGcjhaQuXK8 


References
DiAngelo, R. r., & Sensoy, Ö. o. (2014). Leaning In: A Student's Guide to Engaging Constructively   with Social Justice Content. Radical Pedagogy, 11(1), 2.

Drake, S. M., Kolohon, W., & Reid, J. L. (2014). Interweaving curriculum and classroom assessment: engaging the 21st-century learner. Don Mills, Ontario : Oxford University Press, [2014].

Kumar, Radiant. (2012, Dec 26) Left Brain VS Right Brain. Web. 22 Sept 2015. Retrieved from: http://theonshoreworld.blogspot.ca/2012/12/left-brain-vs-right-brain_26.html
O'Connor, K. (2011, June 3). Solution Tree: Ken O'Connor on Grading Effectively. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGcjhaQuXK8

 Rahim, Sameer. (2010, June 11) English Examination: Have they got easier? Web. 22 Sept 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7817602/English-Examinations-Have-they-got-easier.html

Sternberg, B. (2012, December 3). None of the Above- Why Standardized Testing Fails: Bob Sternberg at TEDxOStateU. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otlmKZeNi-U

Verstegen, D. A. (2015). On Doing an Analysis of Equity and Closing the Opportunity Gap. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 23(41).





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3 comments:

  1. c duckett23 September 2015 at 20:00

    Hi Jenn,

    Your posting was extremely engaging academically, and physically attractive with the different colors you used to catch the reader eye as well as the different types of medias which really kept me motivated and excited to continue to read your blog. In addition I found myself really connecting with your discussion around the issues with current traditional way of grading. I too agree that we as a new generation of teachers need to distance you from the tradition way of grading by being more creative in our ways. Professors Drake discussion around this new idea of all schools moving away from giving out a physical grade leaves me wanting more information and motivated to follow this through. Having this class reflect this type of policy I believe is a great way to start to get us thinking in a different perspective when it comes to assignments and to receiving marks of approval from the professor. With that being said, moving away from traditional ways of grading I believe can be achieved by the techniques we are taught in the next 2 years. It seems although your experiences with tests and exams as well as mine leads me question why we are so concerned with evaluating how well students are doing? When in the real world we are not given a grade when we complete something related to our profession.

    Overall really great job at including valid sources, different types of medias, and your person experience. I look forward to reading your next blog

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  2. Ms. D26 September 2015 at 08:18

    Hi Jen,
    Your blog was really well written and took a really interesting perspective on the tradition assessment techniques used in schools. It was already apparent to me that not all learning needs were met in the types of assessments used in the traditional classroom. However, I never considered it from the point of view of someone with an LD. LD’s are so common nowadays that it frightens me how many of these student’s learning needs aren't being met, because of the curriculum and the schooling system’s emphasis on standardization. It is truly a shame that as of right now, intelligence is measured based on how well you do on standardized tests and academic papers. Additionally that the competition for highest average is encouraged and even rewarded, such as through admittance to a high level post secondary schools or a significant scholarships. My high school had a very wide diversity of programs offered for the variety of different learners; we had the Life skills program for students with intellectual and physical disabilities, the Essential program which offered resources classes and technological classes for students who weren’t as “academically successful” as the school would have liked , and the typical Applied and Academic streams which determined if students went to college or university, respectively. On the one hand it was nice that they catered to the wide variety of learning needs, but they also perpetuated the idea of streaming students into certain career paths. There was also a negative stigma around some of the streams, such as the Essential and Applied kids were the ones who never went to class and slacked all the time. These stigmas played into those self-fulfilling prophecies of self-worth and academic potential that you mentioned. It is sad to think that schools are the ones who are leading kids into these stereotypes. This is why I agree with you that we need to change the way students are assessed in schools today and try to stop this emphasis on high marks and streaming into certain jobs.
    Anyway, great job on your blog! Thank you for allowing me to rant and reflect on how the school system today still has quite a few kinks to work out in order to reflect the wide diversity of students in school now. I look forward to reading your next blog. Finally, I leave you with one question: Do you think it would be best for secondary schools to get rid of the streaming system completely and to mainstream all kids like in elementary, or is streaming something that we can’t get rid of because of the structure of society?

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  3. V Dunlop28 September 2015 at 12:49

    Wow, Jennifer, this blog is an eloquent commentary on current assessment practices in our schools. Well done! Your research, videos, and experience all support the need for Ontario’s educational leaders to seriously reconsider the evaluation process. I particularly enjoyed Ken O’Connor’s video which described the conditions of quality for grades.

    Your Grade 12 Biology story is a classic example of short-term rote learning. In high school, I, too, was able to retain meaningless information overnight, spew it the next day, and thereby “achieve” As. I concluded that the only thing I really learned from this process was how to cheat the system because, in fact, I learned nothing about the subject matter at all. How ridiculous that test results quantify rote memorization as equivalent to true, meaningful learning!

    I had one History teacher who conducted individual oral tests. I learned more in his class than in the rest of high school all together. There was no fooling him. He started out by stating, “Tell me about the Battle of Waterloo” and then asked further questions based on the original response. He was so effective at evaluating what his students really knew and understood that I plan to use his techniques in my own classroom. A further advantage is that oral questioning allows for the accommodation of children with learning disabilities, as the teacher I can tailor the questions to their strengths. Have you thought of how you will evaluate using non-traditional methods?

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