Chapter 15

What?
Chapter 15 is about assessment. I had no idea that so many different types of assessments even existed! It's interesting that we can measure many different skills through assessment when consider types other than paper-and-pencil exams. I found it very interesting that motivation was a good reason for assessing our students. A good test can help students retain the information that we give them. The RSVP of an assessment is very important in making our assessments sound and worthwhile. R- Reliability is that our assessments contain consistent questions and are not found to have tricky wording or bias questions. S- Standardization is that we consistently implement our assessments and administer and grade them in exactly the same way for every student. V- Validity of our assessments is that it actually measures the material we taught and wanted the students to remember. P- Praciticality is the ease and usefulness of the assessment to be given and used in a classroom setting. Formal assessments are planned ahead of time and scheduled so that students know exactly when they are going to be so that they have time to prepare for them in advance. An informal assessment can occur during class in many forms and is given on the spur of the moment or comes through mere observation of the students while they perform tasks.

So What?
This is a big and very important topic and skill that I, as a future teacher, need to understand and be able to implement very well in order to be successful in my career. Teachers need to be able to measure student's knowledge and our own teaching skills and assessments help us accomplish these things. If I give poor assessments my students will not be motivated to study, remember information given, or may be confused and frustrated when taking the assessment. Thus my whole purpose for teaching is not fulfilled.

Now What?
I'm excited to begin to tackle the Assessment inventory assignment so that I can put all this assessment knowledge into practice and see how to implement it specifically to my content area. I also need to learn how to write good test questions that aren't confusing and really get students to communicate their level of understanding. I also think that I can use some of these assessment strategies and tools to assess myself as a teacher and from there be able to change and adapt my studying as a student/future teacher.