Reply to Katherine Hillerich's post: Admittedly, it is very difficult to get assessments to match up to the individual challenges of each student. And, teachers are not trained in psychoanalysis. Moreover, it can be a slippery slope into subjective grading vs objective grading when accommodations are made for every student. My main nightmare, however, is the student whose grade arbitrarily slips just 6 points from a C- (70) to an F (64.5) because of bad questions or poorly designed assessment structure. Imagine how that plays out, particularly in colleges where that one course prevents one from taking the next course, cost an extra semester in school, extra tuition, extra living expense. Its hard to not lose hope under those circumstances.
That said, I am starting to agree with Sal Kahn of Kahn Academy. Test only the fundamentals of a course, but demand 100% mastery on those items that are required for success at the next level. We should not set students up for failure. This is accomplished mainly by not prescripting the time for accomplishing 100% mastery. Providing for independence in timing of assessments allows faster students to move on, and students who need more time can take some pressure off.
Of course, such an idea is upsetting to the traditional notion of a 'semester' and also of the concept of mass education. But, in truth, there is no 'mass education'. It is a myth we invent to reduce cost. The truth is that we all learn individually. Put 30 students in class and teach them the same thing. Ask what they learned and we get 30 different impressions of it. And some learned nothing due to thinking about other things in their life. All of which suggests that 'mass education' may not be very cost effective all. Sometimes, the main thing students learn is how to obtain answers on the Internet, to get a grade, to pretend they are learning. That sounds awful I know, but fortunately, a good number of students do in fact, learn, at least enough to make it a rewarding profession.
Reply to Michael Taylor's post:
I completely agree with your post. I think it's important to make sure we are assessing our students accurately. In the mental health field, I am familiar with patients and students with psychiatric complications impacting their ability to test effectively. A student with high anxiety may not test well, despite knowing the material. It's important to tailor the assessments to our students as best as we can.
When assessing a competency, it is helpful to put the learning objectives within the lab environment into categories, such as foundation skills, technical skills, and professional skills. This addresses the 3 domains of Bloom's Taxonomy.
I reviewed the knowledge I currently have on setting up assessments in my classroom. I try to follow the steps provided by Bloom for a student to show how they are developing in a class.
assess of progress is essential for students
Rubrics are important tools used to assess and track student outcomes.
I am a big believer in getting assessment right. A student's record, pass rate, GPA, and their future success depend on the vital ability to be given a true evaluation of their skills and understanding. Here is a quick and dirty look at some issues that happen:
- Outcome if assessment is too lenient: Student has an unrealisitic expectation of success after graduation. Employers are dissappointed, not only in the student, but in the school.
- Outcome if assessment is too difficult: Student is held to a standard that is beyond the intentions of the objectives, being measured on skills/knowledge not in the course. This results in a high failure rate and often, a student's unwillingness to continue.
- Outcome when the assessments don't match the objectives: Students study the wrong information and maybe even know quite a bit, but fail because the tests were designed for something else.
- Outcome when tests are not vetted: Imagine a scenario when an automated test has bad answers. It grades a student who knows the correct answer and marks then down or fails them anyway. Timid students don't challenge it. They just take the bad grade, all because a teacher did not bother to fix the stuff to begin with. Alternatively, if students were already at risk, this just makes it worse.
As an administrator, I have never witnessed students more upset than when given a bad grade because of a bad assessment.
Evaluating students is essential to the learning outcomes of the students. Utilizing the rubric and the different levels of Bloom's taxonomy is great help in constructing evaluation of students.
I feel that evaluating students in clinical areas might be a challengoing for me. The rubric is definitely a great tool to help with defining expectation/grading of clinical learnin.
