QUESTION
What is classroom assessment? What are the characteristics of classroom assessment
Course: Educational Assessment and Evaluation
Course code 8602
Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment
ANSWER
Classroom Assessment
Kizlik (2011) defines assessment
as a process by which information is obtained relative to some known objective
or goal. Assessment is a broad term that includes testing. For example, a
teacher may assess the knowledge of the English language through a test and
assess the language proficiency of the students through any other instrument
for example oral quiz or presentation. Based upon this view, we can say that
every test is an assessment but every assessment is not the test. The term
‘assessment’ is derived from the Latin word ‘assidere’ which means ‘to sit
beside’. In contrast to testing, the tone of the term assessment is
non-threatening indicating a partnership based on mutual trust and
understanding. This emphasizes that there should be a positive rather than a
negative association between assessment and the process of teaching and
learning in schools. In the broadest sense assessment is concerned with
children’s progress and achievement. In a comprehensive and specific way,
classroom assessment may be defined as the process of gathering, recording,
interpreting, using, and communicating information about a child’s progress and
achievement during the development of knowledge, concepts, skills, and
attitudes. (NCCA, 2004) In short, we can say that assessment entails much more
than testing. It is an ongoing process that includes many formal and informal
activities designed to monitor and improve teaching and learning.
Characteristics of Classroom Assessment
1. Effective assessment of student learning
begins with educational goals.
Assessment is not an end in itself but a vehicle for educational improvement. Its effective practice, then, begins with and enacts a vision of the kinds of learning we most value for students and strive to help them achieve. Educational values/ goals should drive not only what we choose to assess but also how we do so. Where questions about educational mission and values are skipped over, assessment threatens to be an exercise in measuring what's easy, rather than a process of improving what we really care about.
2. Assessment
is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning as
multidimensional, integrated, and revealed in performance over time.
Learning is a complex process. It entails not
only what students know but what they can do with what they know; it involves
not only knowledge and abilities but also values, attitudes, and habits of mind that
affect both academic success and performance beyond the classroom. Assessment
should reflect these understandings by employing a diverse array of methods,
including those that call for actual performance, using them over time so as to
reveal change, growth, and increasing degrees of integration. Such an approach
aims for a more complete and accurate picture of learning, and therefore, a firm
base for improving our students' educational experience.
3. Assessment works best when it has clear,
explicitly stated purposes.
Assessment is a goal-oriented
process. It entails comparing educational performance with educational purposes
and expectations -- those derived from the institution's mission, from faculty
intentions in program and course design, and from knowledge of students' own
goals. Where program purposes lack specificity or agreement, assessment as a
process pushes a campus towards clarity about where to aim and what standards
to apply; assessment also prompts attention to where and how program goals will
be taught and learned. Clear, shared, implementable goals are the cornerstone
for assessment that is focused and useful.
4. Assessment requires attention to outcomes but
also equally to the experiences that lead to those outcomes.
Information about outcomes is of
high importance; where students "end up" matters greatly. But to
improve outcomes, we need to know about student experience along the way --
about the curricula, teaching, and kind of student effort that leads to
particular outcomes. Assessment can help us understand which students learn best
under what conditions; with such knowledge comes the capacity to improve the
whole of their learning.
5. Assessment works best when it is ongoing, not
episodic.
Assessment is a process whose
power is cumulative. Though isolated, a "one-shot" assessment can be
better than none, improvement is best fostered when assessment entails a linked
series of activities undertaken over time. This may mean tracking the process
of individual students, or of cohorts of students; it may mean collecting the
same examples of student performance or using the same instrument semester
after semester. The point is to monitor progress toward intended goals in a
spirit of continuous improvement. Along the way, the assessment process itself
should be evaluated and refined in light of emerging insights.
6. Assessment is effective when representatives
from across the educational community are involved.
Student education is a
campus-wide liability, and assessment is a way of acting out that
responsibility. Thus, while assessment attempts may start small, the aim over
time is to involve people from across the educational community. Faculty plays
an important role, but assessment questions can't be fully addressed without
participation by educators, librarians, administrators, and students.
Assessment may also involve individuals from beyond the campus (alumni/ae,
trustees, employers) whose experience can enrich the sense of appropriate aims
and standards for learning. Thus understood, assessment is not a task for small
groups of experts but a collaborative activity; its aim is wider, better[1]informed attention to
student learning by all parties with a stake in its improvement.
7. Assessment makes a difference when it begins
with issues of use and illuminates questions that people really care about.
Assessment recognizes the value
of information in the process of improvement. But to be useful, information
must be connected to issues or questions that people really care about. This
implies assessment approaches that produce evidence that relevant parties will
find credible, suggestive, and applicable to decisions that need to be made. It
means thinking in advance about how the information will be used, and by whom.
The point of assessment is not to collect data and return "results";
it is a process that starts with the questions of decision-makers, involves them in the gathering and interpreting of data, and informs and
helps guide continuous improvement.
8. Through effective assessment, educators meet
responsibilities to students and to the public.
There is a compelling public stake in
education. As educators, we have a responsibility to the public that supports or
depends on us to provide information about the ways in which our students meet
goals and expectations. But that responsibility goes beyond the reporting of
such information; our deeper obligation -- to ourselves, our students, and
society -- is to improve. Those to whom educators are accountable have a
corresponding obligation to support such attempts at improvement. (American
Association for Higher Education; 2003)
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