Assessment for learning are you using it effectively in your classroom

Running head: EFFECTIVE assessment Table of Contents EFFECTIVE assessment Introduction Classroom assessment is the way teachers use to measure students’ performance on how well or how much they have comprehended during the course In other words, it is the evaluation of what students know, understand and are able to Assessment is important in the process of learning and teaching According to edutopia.org, assessment helps educators set standards, allow teachers to provide diagnostic feedback, evaluate the teaching progress and motivate students to learn (Shaffner, 2008) Therefore, it is essential for teachers to identify their way of assessment in order to have a successful course, which is determined by the final results achieved by students showing their improvement This, however, depends on the purpose and types of assessment the teacher chooses to implement In this paper, I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the two types of assessment: summative assessment and formative assessment to find out whether they meet the criteria for an effective assessment and which one is better to realize the kind of learning and progress that we wish the students to achieve - deep learning The suitable assessment will meet the characteristics of deep-learning, including “intention to understand material for oneself, interacting vigorously and critically with the content, relating ideas to previous knowledge and experience, using organizing principles to integrate ideas relating evidence to conclusions and examining the logic of the argument” (Gipps, 1994) By the end of this writing we will be able to determine a proper way to evaluate students’ ability thoroughly, enhancing their learning experience, leading them to a deep approaching to knowledge and conceptual learning EFFECTIVE assessment Principles of an effective assessment Before going on to analyze whether summative assessment or formative assessment is more suitable for educators, we need to know the principles under which these assessment will be taken into examination The criteria in determining an effective assessment includes: (1) Validity or coherence: the assessment supports the use of the results for a particular purpose; (2) Reproducibility or consistency: the results of the assessment remain the same under the same circumstances; (3) Equivalence: the same assessment yields equivalent scores or decisions when administered across different institutions or cycles of testing; (4) Feasibility: the assessment is practical, realistic, and sensible, given the circumstances and context; (5) Educational effect: the assessment motivates those who take it to prepare in a fashion that has educational benefit; (6) Catalytic effect: the assessment provides results and feedback in a fashion that creates, enhances, and supports education; it drives future learning forward; (7) Acceptability: stakeholders find the assessment process and results to be acceptable (Norcini, 2010) Understanding these criteria will help us define the suitable assessment that education needs in order to encourage deep learning in students and compare different methods of assessment Summative and formative assessment 2.1 Summative assessment Summative assessment usually takes place at the end of a course to measure the students’ performance and whether they have achieved the intended outcome after a period of learning time This kind of assessment focuses on providing the information of how much students have learned through grading and scoring scales EFFECTIVE assessment 2.1.1 Advantages The purpose of summative assessment is to report to the teacher about whether the students have learnt what they were expected to, and the results are often recorded as scores or grades (Partnership, Summative Assessment, 2013) This is also a benefit of summative assessment which allows teachers to evaluate on only one clear and detailed scale and then helps classify students into difference groups of level Being able to distinguish types of students, teachers can formulate different teaching methods for each group to meet the expectation Moreover, it is suitable for larger classes and teachers not have to take much time and effort in evaluating students 2.1.2 Disadvantages There are many factors showing that summative measurement can be error in evaluating students’ ability thoroughly For example, taking tests may worry students, causing mental instability to fully perform their ability in the test Accordingly, the results can be error and cannot reflect students’ real learning achievements Students can be negatively influenced on how they have done their tasks after receiving the grades Weak students may feel discouraged when they continue receiving bad grades Furthermore, due to the lack of feedback in the process of learning, they might not find the way to improve their learning and also their grades Education should encourage students to learn without discouraging them or making them feel exhausted and helpless Consequently, students tend to skip class, even drop out of school because the grades make them think studying is not a suitable path for them Several studies and articles have pointed out the decrease in students’ learning motivation under summative assessment Chris Harrison, in “Assessment for learning: are you using it effectively in your classroom”, claims a problem of testing and scoring on students’ performance He explains that teachers in England have “become more data driven and influenced by the need to produce summative data to assess school effectiveness” once every few months This leads to the increase in feeling of helplessness and decrease in learning motivation (Harrison, 2013) The same conclusion has been drawn out by Wyrnne Harlen by citing two reviews of Madaus and Clarke (1998) and McNeil and Valenzuela (2000) presented EFFECTIVE assessment at a conference on High Stakes Testing K-12 held at Harvard University in December 1998 The two authors discussed the impact on not only students’ motivation and dropout rate but also on what they learnt and how they are taught The conclusions includes: (1) “high-stakes, high-standards tests1 not have a markedly positive effect on teaching” and (2) “learning in the classroom and high-stakes testing programs have been shown to increase high school dropout rates – particularly among minority student populations.” (W., 2002) 2.2 Formative assessment Formative assessment that can take place at any time during the course and providing feedback is essential in the teaching or learning process It emphasizes the improvement of learning and teaching without teachers’ giving grades to students 2.2.1 Advantages Contrary to summative assessment, formative assessment does not usually relate to grading but teachers’ feedback to find solutions for students’ improvement The outcome is students’ motivation, and more accurate results of the assessment Formative assessment supports the importance of feedbacks in learning Having feedback to previous works will help them become aware of the gap between their current learning situations and their desired goal, and then guides them through the solutions and action necessary to obtain the goal (Boston, 2002) The students can concentrate more on being better than he was and being encouraged to study harder This is also one of the education values, which is to encourage learning and does not focus on surface learning or trying to memorize everything they have learnt for some kind of tests It is understandable that students care a lot about grades; therefore, this kind of assessment will shift their focus from scores to actually learn the knowledge and deepen their understanding A high-stakes test is any test used to make important decisions about students, educators, schools, or districts, most commonly for the purpose of accountability—i.e., the attempt by federal, state, or local government agencies and school administrators to ensure that students are enrolled in effective schools and being taught by effective teachers (Partnership, High-stakes Test, 2014) EFFECTIVE assessment 2.2.2 Disadvantages Although formative assessment exposes some benefits to learning, some argue that it seems impractical and difficult to implement In a large-size class, teachers will not be able to afford times to care for every single individual and give personal feedbacks Consequently, accurate evaluation can still not happen in reality However, nowadays, there are many technological tools that assist learning and teaching process such as Google class to make the assessment process easier Because of the lack of standardized grading scale, the evaluation scale possibly based on the teacher’ bias will not be very clear It is difficult for teachers to measures students’ performance as it is entirely based on their effort, which cannot be clearly seen by the teachers However, it can be solved by having more tutors to balance the opinion and supervise the assessment process Conclusion Obviously, both kinds of assessment have advantages and disadvantages, and basing on the above analysis and criteria from the first section that each must meet, formative assessment seems to serve deep learning goal more effectively On validity, the purpose of formative assessment is more learning-oriented and encourages students to deepen their study, whereas summative assessment might discourage real learning and prevent students from deep learning This also proves that formative learning has met the catalytic effect more effectively On feasibility, summative assessment seems to meet the large-size class demand Meanwhile, formative assessment cannot meet this requirement, which can be adjusted by technology and tools provided by some websites Another problem of formative assessment is that it may lack consistency in students’ achievement evaluation based on teachers’ bias However, providing the class with more tutors to supervise learning, teaching can make the assessment process more feasible It can even improve students’ learning quality as they receive more attention and assistance from various instructors and the problems can be easily solved EFFECTIVE assessment On the whole, the goal of education is to boost deep-learning, which can be better fulfilled with formative assessment Formative assessment is a better way to help students intentionally understand materials for their own sake without grades, positively and critically engage them with the content, relating ideas to previous knowledge and experience, using organizing principles to integrate ideas relating evidence to conclusions and examining the logic of the argument As a result, students have a better cognitive capacity and application ability In today’s society, conceptual leaning is fundamental for the future and career path of students as jobs are day by day replaced by artificial intelligence and automobiles However, benefits of summative assessment should still be recognized, and in some context we can make use of this kind of assessment in realizing its purpose in measuring students’ performance EFFECTIVE assessment References Boston, C (2002) Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation Retrieved from pareonline.net: https://pareonline.net/getvn.asp? n=9&v=8&sa=U&ei=VfICVLS0E5PhariigqAH&ved=0CDkQFjAG&usg=AFQjC NFwZgnvxSCo3-_xgTVBV9TS7iy7w&fbclid=IwAR3QHi_liCV3LAZFpYTTZGY0fUr5wNmrWOuwv5QKe1dm0gp3xP78Deo_9Y Gipps, C (1994) Beyond Testing: Towards a theory of educational assessment Retrieved from researchgate.net: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238727509_Beyond_Testing_Towards_a _Theory_of_Educational_Assessment Harrison, C (2013) Assessment for learning: are you using it effectively in your classroom? Retrieved from theguardian.com: https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacherblog/2013/aug/29/assessment-for-learing-effective-classroom Norcini, J (2010) Criteria for good assessment: Consensus statement and recommendations from the Ottawa 2010 Conference Retrieved from researchgate.net: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49942472_Criteria_for_good_assessmen t_Consensus_statement_and_recommendations_from_the_Ottawa_2010_Conferen ce EFFECTIVE assessment Partnership, G S (2013, 08 23) Summative Assessment Retrieved from Glossary of Educational Reform: https://www.edglossary.org/summative-assessment/ Partnership, G S (2014) High-stakes Test Retrieved from Glossary of Educational Reform: https://www.edglossary.org/high-stakes-testing/ Shaffner, M (2008, July 15) Why Is Assessment Important? Retrieved from edutopia.org: https://www.edutopia.org/assessment-guide-importance W., H (2002) A systematic review of the impact of summative assessment and tests on Retrieved from researchgate.net: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323177577_A_systematic_review_of_th e_impact_of_summative_assessment_and_tests_on_students'_motivation_for_lear ning_Evidence_for_Policy_and_Practice_Information_and_Co-ordinating_Centre EFFECTIVE assessment 10 EFFECTIVE assessment 11 ... Harrison, in ? ?Assessment for learning: are you using it effectively in your classroom? ??, claims a problem of testing and scoring on students’ performance He explains that teachers in England have “become... (2013) Assessment for learning: are you using it effectively in your classroom? Retrieved from theguardian.com: https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacherblog/2013/aug/29 /assessment- for- learing-effective -classroom. .. - deep learning The suitable assessment will meet the characteristics of deep -learning, including “intention to understand material for oneself, interacting vigorously and critically with the