Assessments Should Change
Gillis and Van Wig bring up some great points including one about teachers having to spend instructional time to teach students how to take standardized tests. I know many teachers who dread standardized testing because it is not an effective way of measuring students' progress and it takes away time teachers could use to give valuable information students need in their disciplines. The article offers a formative assessment tool called the Strategic Content Literacy Assessment, or SCLA for short. According to "Disciplinary Literacy Assessment", "The assessment measures students' abilities to connect what they read to prior knowledge, summarize what they read, draw inferences, make intertextual connections, comprehend vocabulary terms that are explicitly and implicitly defined in the text, and think metacognitively." (Gillis & Van Wig, 2015). This kind of assessment would be a much better tool to assess and monitor where students are at with course work and understanding of the material. The assessment forces students to go below surface level regurgitation of information and understanding. This tool would help teachers and students figure out what materials and skills need more time and attention. This assessment would also be much more productive and usable in terms of class time and resources. It would be a much better use of instructional time as it teaches students not only to think about what they know and their thought process, but also to make connections and inferences within their disciplines.
Also, the fact that this assessment can be applied across disciplines is even better than general standardized tests. By tailoring the assessment to subjects and course material makes it a more reliable and efficient way to know how students are progressing. This article actually gives me hope in terms of having better tools to help my students and myself and it should be implemented in classrooms everywhere. The article outlines how the assessment works for each discipline and how to score and evaluate assessments. Teachers are also able to share results with students and this would help increase student understanding and hopefully parent involvement as well so everyone knows what needs to be done for students to progress and succeed academically.
I don't have experience teaching, but reading this article and reading Bess analysis it gives me the impression that standardized test has being an issue in the education arena, because of the time consuming that it take to teach student how to understand standardized tests. Also, according to the authors standardized test assessment interferers with literacy instruction. Therefore, like Bess mention the authors talk about Strategic Content Literacy Assessment (SCLA)as a strategy to teach student different education disciplines with the purpose of evaluating and helping student to know their strengths and weaknesses therefore the students become fully involved in their own learning growth. Also, one important point that Bess made is that parents should be involved in the students progress for it is important that student keep learn inside and outside of school and to practice those skills.
ReplyDeleteI don't have experience with it either but I have many teacher friends and they all seem to have the same opinion that standardized testing is not a good way to assess students' progress. With this article's assessment option it would be an easier and more efficient way of increasing instruction and helping everyone involved in the students' education.
DeleteHello Bess,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post about assessments. I have a strong dislike for standardized tests for the exact reason you stated in your first line. Teachers are having to spend instructional time to instruct students on how to take these high stakes tests. These tests affect teacher salary, school closings, etc. It's so hard to believe that one test could be the reason why one's school closes. Some students are not good test takers or have extreme test anxiety. There is too much riding on these tests. These tests are not a valid way to measure students' progress either. You are absolutely right. The SCLA assessment that was discussed seems like it would be much more useful in measuring students' progress compared to standardized tests. It would definitely help students make connections across the disciplines which is one aspect standardized tests does not address. I agree with the points you discussed about this assessment. Hopefully we can see this be implemented in classrooms sooner rather than later.
Thanks! I dislike standardized testing as well because I know people who are brilliant, but they are terrible test takers. Teachers should be able to assess students' progress with assessments more tailored to their courses because this would help students learn the material they actually need to know. I definitely think this type of assessment should be implemented in classrooms because it would make a difference between students succeeding and schools being forced to close due to low test scores.
DeleteIt has been controversial to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the general standardized tests for a long time. I agree with the formative assessment tool, SCLA, mentioned by Gills and Wig, which is to measure students' thinking and comprehension. However, when I see the construction an SCLA for mathematics in the article, I am thinking that whether it extends the easy staff to the complex. I believe that the steps it offers can help teachers examine the students' thinking process and logics, but that "an SCLA in math can be administered on multiple days, one problem each day (Gills & Wig, 2015)" means to assess students every day. Actually, we can combine this strategy with the general standardized tests, for example, SCLA examines everyday students' learning, and then the tests can be given during each period. I think the general standardized tests are a quick and easy way to examine students' mastery of knowledge, even though it takes time and money to make it.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with the standardized testing is that it doesn't actually help students learn or assess their progress on an appropriate scale. By using the article's proposed assessment tool I think it would save time and money because time would be spent teaching the material that students actually need to know in order to succeed in school versus teaching them what is on a standardized test. I have seen schools that only teach what is on the tests because they want to boost scores, but it is those same schools that students struggle after graduation because they don't know essential tools for succeeding in a higher education setting.
DeleteBess,
ReplyDeleteI think that you bring up the essence of the article in your post-- this emphasis on formative assessment brings back accountability into learning. As opposed to focusing on quantitative results, hoping that students are getting the right answers at the end of units in order to move on to the next item of business, we are monitoring the process of learning. Brozo & Simpson emphasize that learning is a dynamic and continuous process that takes place over time and changes (88). What this means is that we have many opportunities before any kind of quantitative assessment takes place which affects a student's official standing to evaluate students' progress, modify our teaching methods accordingly and communicate the changes students need to learn to make in order to avoid the realization of problems only after test taking. Helping students develop effective strategies and fall into familiar processes for successful comprehension, production and engagement will help them grow confident in their performance because they have internalized the information and understand it and therefore will be able to show what they have been working on.
Yes I think in order to accurately assess students' understanding and progress, we as teachers need to modify our teaching methods in order for students to retain the material. By doing this, we not only help them learn in the classroom, but we also help them do better with testing as you said.
DeleteI liked reading your post on assessments. Having to teach to many standardized tests becomes overwhelming for the teacher and students. For instance, students become very upset with themselves if they do not do well on these tests. I have had 4th graders cry over not hitting their “target” score in NWEA. My school is a data driven school and it has the pro and cons just like any other school. However, testing has gotten out of control! Teachers want “teach to the test” because their ratings and the school is affected by the outcome of the students scores. The pressure on the teacher becomes so overbearing. At my school students are taking NWEA which this test affects teacher and school ratings. Then we have to “teach to” the PARCC assessment. These two tests are completely different and teachers way of teaching needs to be modified if they want their students to do well on the test. It is very frustrating because these assessments are always changing every few years, and teachers and students are put under a lot of stress to perform well on all tests. I agree that these assessments are not always valid as well. All people have good and bad days especially children. They are expected to come in and take a strenuous assessment, but no one knows if this child could have had a horrible night or morning. I believe this tests give students and teachers a great amount of stress that is not needed.
ReplyDeleteExactly! I have seen students struggle in school and feel terrible about themselves because they aren't meeting a certain standard for testing. I have also seen students get a lot of stress and anxiety because of testing and the amount of pressure it puts on them because they see it as their future being determined by a test. I definitely agree with you we need better ways to assess students that don't involve such stress and pressure.
DeleteHey Bess,
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading this week's excerpts it made me think of just how much I am not looking forward to standardized testing as a future educator, and your post only furthered that feeling!
Often times I think the students assume that they are the only ones who dislike standardized testing, but the teachers hate it just as much. These standardize tests only make students "regurgitate" information instead of using meta-cognition and critical thinking.
I think there needs to be a shift of assessment where standardized testing does not simply measure basic comprehension and how well a student can take a test. Rather the focus should be on how students are solving the problems and what we can do as educators to further their success, not just a raise a grade on a test.
Exactly I hate that these tests are focused on regurgitation of information rather than taking the course material that has been taught and expanding on it to see if students understood the information. And I definitely agree with your idea on assessment; it should be about using your knowledge on the material not their ability to choose the right answer using probability.
DeleteI think we're at risk of becoming a country solely focused on testing. It seems like close to rock bottom, but I think there is even farther to go. I stayed at a Chinese high school for a short period of time my senior year, and the only time kids paid attention was when they knew the content was relevant to their college entrance exam. That exam basically determines their future and the results can put a lot more limitation on a person than the tests can here, but I see us adopting that kind of culture in the near future.
ReplyDeleteAt first my solution to this was change the way we teach content. If students are taught how to think in the first place, it is likely they can beat the test. But I realized that would only affirm that all the trash systems the government has imposed on us teachers and the students are effective. I think we need a complete uprooting of the current testing instead of just focusing on reform when we know it just can't work. I say teachers in conjunction with students plan a mass protest to intentionally fail all state issued exams.
I definitely agree with you. I see students under so much pressure to get through these tests they take tutoring and join study groups and do anything they can to do well because their future depends on it. I think complete uproot of the current system would be better but in reality people are too lazy to even do the reforming and the testing needs to change.
DeleteBess,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that the SCLA is a great tool. You mention that this type of assessment "forces students to go below surface level regurgitation of information and understanding." I think that standardized tests test more of what students can memorize rather then what they know. The SCLA makes students make connections with prior knowledge which is very important. As a future science teacher, I am going to implement this type of assessment in my class. Science involves a lot of building on prior knowledge and expanding previously learned concepts. Not understanding a concept learned early on may be detrimental for students to master future concepts.
I don’t think standardized testing is a good and effective measurement for students’ progress. Many teachers spend a lot of instructional time actually teaching student test-taking strategies instead of teaching knowledge content or skills, especially, in science classes. In science classes, teacher spend a lot of time preparing students for the standardized tests such as the Act and teaching them how to pull information from graphs, charts and diagrams to be able to pass the science part of that test. Student actually can give the right answers without even understanding the concepts in the questions. Moreover, some students may not be good test takers even though they may master the content, and they may perform poorly in the test. Therefore, there are many reasons to consider standardized testing as an ineffective tool to measure students’ progress. I believe the Strategic Content Literacy Assessment, or SCLA that you described in your post is an effective strategy to assess students’ knowledge and progress. This strategy helps students to know their strengths and weakness, and help them to make connection to prior knowledge and across disciplines. It also can help the teacher to assess students’ thinking and comprehension. I think it is a very useful strategy to implement in science classes.
ReplyDelete