The Idea of Assessing and Evaluation

There has been bad talk against assessment in the past and for good reason. Teaching to the test was a common practice and students did not always learn what they needed to because the tests were on a different subject matter. However, with the coming of Common Core Standards the world of education has changed in a way for the better. Research has found that students will retain information if they are tested on it but what a teacher also needs to consider is there are different types of tests and some students do better on one rather than the other. For example, there may be four to five students in one class that would prefer to write a paper as their assessment, where as others would prefer to take an objective test.

Two things that a teacher should consider when teaching and assessing is: “their ability to apply that knowledge to texts” and “’correct answer’ quizzes, tests, or worksheets provide little or no opportunity for the expression of individual open-ended responses” (Beach225). With Common Core State Standards teachers are asking students to show they understand texts or information they are given, not just to feed it back to the teacher. This is allowing students to understand the text from their point of view and pull information out that others may not have seen as important. By giving the students more freedom there is more of an interest in what the students are learning.

Of course, with new assessment there is new assessment grading. Grade points and letter grades do ascertain if a student is turning in and completing the assignments a teacher is assigning but that does not mean that they are understanding the Common Core State Standards or just understanding the assignment. From what I have learned being in the classroom is the scale of 0 to 4 helps both the teacher and the student understand where they still need to focus learning on and where to move from here. When my mentor teacher and I ask the students how many cell bars they have when they are considering what they learned today most will put up a 3. They put up the three and can explain what they were supposed to learn that day. However, there are a few who will put up a 1 or 2 and will not struggle explaining key terms and concepts we worked on that day. It is the job of the teacher to figure out who is falling where on the scale and see where they may need additional help.