By Uzma
Tabassum
Key words; define Assessment, Types
of Assessment, Summative Assessment, Interim Assessment, Formative
Assessment, Assessment of students achievements, Purposes of Student
Assessment, Subjective assessment, Objective assessment
Types
of students Assessment
Contents
Assessment
is the process of observing a sample of a student’s behavior and drawing
inferences about the student’s knowledge and abilities. When we are looking at
students’ behavior, we typically only use a sample of classroom behavior.
·
Assessment
instruments do not dictate the decisions to be made.
·
Teachers,
administrators, government officials, parents, and even students interpret
assessment results and make decisions based on the results.
·
Assessments
are tools that allow us to make informed decisions about how best to help our
students learn and achieve
·
Assessment
interpretation can be abused.
There are three main types of
Assessment.
·
Summative
Assessment
·
Interim
Assessment
·
Formative
Assessment
Summative
Assessment takes place at the end of a course or subject, these results are
primarily for the teacher's or school's use. Results may take time to be
returned to the student/parent, feedback to the student is usually very
limited, and the student usually has no opportunity to be reassessed. Thus,
Summative Assessment tends to have the least impact on improving an individual
student's understanding or performance. Students/parents can use the results of
Summative Assessments to see where the student's performance lies compared to
either a standard (MEAP/MME) or to a group of students (usually a grade-level
group, such as all 6th graders nationally, such as Iowa Tests or ACT).
Teachers/schools can use these assessments to identify strengths and weaknesses
of curriculum and instruction, with improvements affecting the next year's/term's
students.
Examples: Standardized testing (MEAP, MME, ACT,
Work Keys, Terra Nova, etc.); Final exams; Major cumulative projects, research
projects, and performances.
Interim
Assessment takes place occasionally throughout a larger time period. Learner
gets Feedback quicker in this type of assessment, Interim Assessments tend to
be more formal, using tools such as written assignments, projects, and tests.
The learner should be given the opportunity to re-demonstrate his/her
understanding once the feedback has been digested and acted upon. Interim
Assessments can help teachers identify gaps in student understanding and
instruction, and ideally teachers address these before moving on or by weaving
remedies into upcoming instruction and activities.
Examples: Chapter test; extended essay; a
project scored with a rubric.
Formative
Assessment occurs in the short term, as learners are in the process of making
meaning of new content and of integrating it into what they already know.
Feedback to the learner is immediate (or nearly so), to enable the learner to
change his/her behavior and understandings right away. Formative Assessment
also enables the teacher to "turn on a dime" and rethink
instructional strategies, activities, and content based on student
understanding and performance. His/her role here is comparable to that of a
coach. Formative Assessment can be as informal as observing the learner's work
or as formal as a written test. Formative Assessment is the most powerful type
of assessment for improving student understanding and performance.
Examples: a very interactive class discussion;
a warm-up, closure, or exit slip; an on-the-spot performance; a quiz.
·
To
promote learning
·
In
order for assessment to promote students’ learning and achievement, it should:
1.
Provide
specific & concrete feedback
2.
Act
as a learning experience, letting students know what they have and have not
mastered
3.
Act
as a motivator—students should know what to study and when
4.
Act
as a review mechanism
5.
Influence
cognitive processing
6.
To
guide instructional decision making
7.
To
assist in the diagnosis of learning and performance problems
8.
To
promote self-regulation
9.
To
determine what students have learned
Student
assessment is one of the key issues in education. How do we know if students
have learned what we are trying to teach them? There are multiple forms of
assessment available. We believe that offering varied methods is the best
model. You will find in the following documents some examples of different
types of assessment, and how some MSU faculties have used them. You will also
find resources and guides.
Assessment
can be based on writing an individual paper, preparing a group presentation,
class participation, attendance, homework problem sets, exams (essay, short
answer, multiple choice, true/false), and so on. Alternatively, when a student
performs a task rather than taking a test, it is called performance assessment.
Examples of performance assessment include: debating a topic; demonstrating a
skill; conducting an experiment and writing the results; doing a project; or
compiling a portfolio of work.
Ideally
the assessment process informs the teacher and the learner about learner
progress and at the same time, contributes to the learning process. In theory,
good assessment:
·
measures
meaningful learning outcomes
·
does
so in a fair, reliable, accurate way
·
is
easy to administer, score, and interpret
·
informs
the teacher about student performance and how they are interpreting course
experiences
·
results
in meaningful feedback to the learner
·
is
itself a learning experience
Feedback
is a very important part of learning. Feedback is the mechanism that lets the learner
know whether they are on the right track. Assessment and measurement strategies
provide feedback to both the student and instructor. Students learn more
effectively if they receive frequent, meaningful, and rapid feedback. Feedback
may come from the instructor directly, from assignments and assessments which
have feedback built into them, or even from other students.
Feedback
to learners about where they are and where their instructors want them to be
comes in many different ways, such as:
·
instructor
participation in a discussion assignment
·
writing
assignments that require submission of a draft for instructor comments and
suggestions for improvement
·
self-mastery
tests and quizzes that include informative feedback with each answer choice
·
interactive
games and simulations that have feedback built in
Technology
can provide automated assessments which provide instant right or wrong
feedback. Interactive media provide feedback when they add a visual change to
indicate mouse over, or a sound to accompany an action. This very simple form
of feedback lets the learner know their input has been received. More
sophisticated technologies can offer constructive criticism. Technology can
also help by gathering and organizing student performances and making it easy to
offer feedback. However, human participation is often a necessary part of
feedback.
Pre-testing
You
might find it helpful to find out whether your students meet the basic
knowledge and skill levels required to learn your materials. Use a pre-test to
find out. Pre-tests are often paired with remedial materials.
Some
instructors offer self-assessment pre-tests prior to the beginning day of class
and offer students ways to catch up before the first day. Others provide time
during the first week for students to do such things. Alternatively, you could
pre-test prior to each module, week or topic.
Practice exams
Practice
exams and problem set homework are popular with students in courses which use
exams for grading. Students who complete a practice exam usually encounter
fewer problems on the official exam. Technical problems have been worked out,
and the student knows what to expect in terms of types of questions.
It's
important to let the student know that practice exam questions will be similar
to what they will find on their exams. However, the specifics will differ based
on course content. For example, a nursing case study will be presented and
students will need to identify specifics relating to the case. In exam, they
will view case studies, but the details will differ. Students are very likely
to complete a practice exam which parallels the real exam even though it does
not count toward their grade.
Subjective assessment
In
subjective assessments the teacher's judgment determines the grade. These
include essay tests. Essay tests take longer to answer and they take longer to
grade than objective questions and therefore only include a small number of
questions, focusing on complex concepts.
Objective assessment
Objective
assessments (usually multiple choice, true false, short answer) have correct
answers. These are good for testing recall of facts and can be automated.
Objective tests assume that there are true answers and assume that all students
should learn the same things.
Self-assessment
Self-assessment
types of assignments are provided for quick student feedback. Self-assessments:
·
help
the learner check if they have mastered a topic
·
provide
opportunity to measure learning progress
·
are
usually voluntary and may allow multiple attempts
·
inform
the learner, but not the teacher
·
can
occur whenever a performance activity is linked with feedback about that
performance.
Self-assessment
examples:
·
practice
quizzes
·
games,
simulations, and other interactive exercises
·
practice
written assignments
·
peer
reviews
·
true-false
questions
Interactive assessments
Interactive
experiences can be designed as spaces within which learners can perform a task.
These experiences can be graded or not. Interactive software can administer
quizzes and give instant, usually fun, right-wrong feedback and perhaps
explanations of right answers. Examples of interactive assessment:
·
A
simulator that lets learners virtually drive, facing the full range of driving
challenges along the way. Simulators can be used both to teach and to test
through performance in the simulation.
·
students
could conduct a virtual experiment rather than an experiment in a physical
laboratory
·
language
software might have sophisticated speech recognition software to provide
feedback about pronunciation
·
Creation
of an online tool, such as a virtual instrument. Students could perform a song,
and the software provides feedback about accuracy and timing.
·
A
game where the goal is to find life in other solar systems. Making sound
decisions about where to search, how to get there, and what to look for earns
points but also shows that you are learning.
Group projects
Group
projects are more challenging in a fully online course because the online tools
often must handle all collaboration. Students do not necessarily live in the
same time zone or even on the same continent, there is no set class meeting
time, and they may have vastly different schedules. Some online students do
their classwork during the week, others work only on weekends. Some like the
idea of meeting in-person with their group, others prefer asynchronous
collaboration. A majority prefer not to do group work at all. Some students
start and finish projects early (they always turn things in first) and others
wait until the last minute. Invariably there will be complaints about group
members who are not participating.
In
real life many projects are team efforts. There is a great deal of learning
value in discussion and collaboration. Tools which can facilitate group
collaboration include asynchronous discussion tools for group communication,
file sharing to share and revise documents, and chat tools for real-time
discussion.
Smaller
groups are more manageable. Teams of two are easier to coordinate than larger
teams, although some courses do groups of 5 or 6. It is important to carefully
assign the groups based on when they like to work and how they prefer to
collaborate. Define clear roles, and include peer review of group participation
as part of the grade. You can ask students to keep a log of their process and
procedures. Provide a "panic button" for students whose team members
have disappeared, so you can help them either decide to work alone or connect
with another group.
Proctored exams
One
anti-cheating strategy is to require students to arrange for a proctor at a
local community college, university or library. The proctor is typically
located by the student and approved by the instructor. The proctor checks photo
ID and monitors the student while they take the exam. Exams are submitted
online, or in some cases, printed and faxed by the proctor to the instructor.
This can be inconvenient for distant students to arrange and for the instructor
to coordinate. MSU testing office participates in a free referral service that
facilitates distance learning. If you’re interested in learning more about this
service please visit the MSU Testing Office and inquire about Distance
Testing.
MSU Example
The
LearnDAT online remedial math course, jointly offered by MSU and San Francisco
State University, used five online exams and two proctored in-person exams. The
math faculty at San Francisco State University have compared grades between the
online and in person exams and found a high level of consistency in the grades,
suggesting cheating is not occurring in the online exams. The instructional
team is now much more confident in the integrity of the online exams. Their
online exams have 20 questions; each question is drawn from a separate pool of
five choices. The order of the questions and answers are randomized.
Students as audience and
peer review
In
the classroom, time constraints prevent students from being able to review each
other’s projects in detail. It is easy to post projects online where everyone
can see them. The work is thus a public performance, a potential source of
pride or embarrassment. It is helpful for other students to see the scope of
work produced by others. They may be motivated on the next assignment by seeing
other outstanding projects.
Peer
review can be an effective learning technique. Taking on the role of judge is a
different mode of understanding the goals of an assignment.
Participation
Class
participation can be an alternative method of assessing the student. A good way
to encourage class participation is to make it part of the overall course
grade. Class participation may include answering reflective questions in a course
module, taking part in weekly class discussions, providing peer review
critiques of fellow students' assignments, or locating and contributing online
resources to a class-created knowledgebase.
The
quality and quantity of submissions can be used to determine the grade. Some
LMSs can track the number of posts a student makes to a discussion forum or
live chat.
Other kinds of
assessment
Alternative
methods of assessment are limited only by your imagination. Consider assigning
reflective journals, one minute papers, contributions to digital archives, or
portfolios.
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