Statement of Philosophy: Assessment

When I think about assessment, the first things that come to mind
include multiple-choice tests and quizzes that students have an hour to
complete, or else. But recently in my studies at Curry Ive come to find that
assessment has a much broader meaning or perhaps even a much broader
spectrum of meanings.
Although there are many types of assessment that I appreciate and am
learning how to use in the classroom, all of these must follow two strict
criteria:
1. All assessment involves the teacher learning information about the
students.
2. All assessment involves the teacher adjusting instruction and providing
feedback based on the information she has learned.
There are many purposes for assessment, but its purpose can be
broadly defined as gauging where students are. This could mean trying to
figure out what information students already know about a topic, what skill
set they already possess within a certain domain, or what their attitudes
towards a certain event or learning experience might be. Ultimately, all of
these different kinds of assessment need to be used to inform the way a
teacher provides instruction (whether for the first, second, or seventeenth
time).
But assessment isnt all for the benefit of the teacher. Although some
forms of assessment, such as affective assessment, are primarily helpful to
the teacher, most forms of assessment can and should be used to inform the
student experience as well. Teachers should provide feedback on diagnostic,
formative, and even summative assessments to help students understand
how they are progressing towards learning objectives. In my personal
opinion, its best if feedback from these assessments is reviewed by both
teacher and student together as often as possible, so that the two can codetermine the students next goals for learning and what steps he or she can
take in order to meet those goals. What makes an assessment good? How
you use it.
It is important for students to experience as many different types of
assessment as possible albeit in vastly different quantities. For example, I
believe that regular affective and short-answer assessments (whether
spoken or written) should occur frequently because they can quickly help the
teacher to determine the students position in relation to their learning goals.
I also believe that many in-class activities, which are not considered by many
to be forms of assessment, can in fact be assessments as long as they are
used to provide the teacher with information and allow the teacher to adapt
instruction. By this logic, I view in-class discussion as a means of assessing
student knowledge, and one that I think should occur quite frequently as it

helps teachers to understand the breadth and depth of students

understanding of material. In contrast, I do not think that multiple choice
forms of assessment are nearly as helpful. This is because the feedback that
teachers can supply in response to this is extremely limited in nature.
However, there is good reason for students to have exposure to and practice
with multiple-choice tests: namely, that many types of high-stakes testing,
such as the SOL, the SAT, and the ACT, are produced in this limiting format.