Chapter 9- Effective Assessment Practices for Reading and Writing

Quotes:

• "There is a relationship between teaching and learning that is not always casual; children learn much that they were not taught."(pg. 261)

I find that this quote touches on the importance of student experience. Life is made up of a variety of experiences that are accompanied by growth and knowledge. Creating opportunities for learning through experiences can allow students to really feel ownership of their knowledge. Learning through discovery is far more exciting than sitting behind a desk being lectured by a teacher. I'm not bashing direct instruction because it does play an important role in teaching I'm only encouraging giving students opportunity to discover knowledge rather than being spoon fed information to regurgitate for exams.

• "According to Paris and Hoffman (2004), there is not one best assessment or even assessment type. Teachers should draw up multiple measures to make informed decisions about the students in their classrooms and the direction of their reading and writing curriculum."(pg.264)

A very important point is made in this statement. According to Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, we all have different intelligences. Some intelligences are stronger than others. Therefore, we should learn what kind of learners we have in our classrooms so that we use the proper tools to create the most beneficial instruction and form of assessment.

Questions:

• It is mentioned that the NCLB legislation mandated the administration of annual reading and math state assessment to hold students and teachers accountable for hitting the required standard benchmarks. In the beginning of implementation where teacher aware of what these exams were going to look like? Were they given time to review the exams before giving it to their students?
• I find portfolios to be an effective way of keeping a clear picture of students work and learning process. Why can't we use portfolios to determine whether or not our students met all their benchmarks rather than having them take standardized exams at the end of the year? Students are held accountable for so much material, including material that hasn't been reviewed since the previous grade. What kinds of other alternatives assessments can we use to replace the end of the year standardized tests?

Issue:

On page 261 the following is stated: There is a perception that because students are tested under similar conditions the tests are unbiased and that all children have equal opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge. I happen to disagree with this statement. While most students might be able to be very successful there is still a population that find standardized tests very difficult. The only way these standardized exams are equal in opportunity is in the way the exam is Proctored. I find the most of the standardized exams are dated and biased. The United states is a very diverse country, culturally and economically. It does seem rather difficult to create an exam that is unbiased for the United states. How can we address this? There are many assessment in use out there for example the Woodcock Johnson that contains questions that are dated. How can we expect to get an accurate measure of a student when the assessment tools are inadequate. I feel that creating an unbiased exams can be tricky but is possible. The sample selections used to create these exams should be more Representative of our nation dives re make up.