Let me start with the most controversial experience I had back in 2006. When I was in high school the policy in establishing final ranking or over-all performance of students was suddenly changed to 70% academic rating and 30% extra-curricular activities right at the end of the course without prior announcements and before I cannot understand this. I have a lot of extra-curricular activities so I did not argue about this and in fact I benefitted from this scheme. A lot of parents and students complained especially those that are running for honours because they believe the basis should only be on the academic rating. I can say that I can understand it now better, the institution is trying to teach us that academic grades is not the only basis for excellence and each student have unique personality, talents and skills that should be nurtured and should also be accounted for. I also agree that it should have never been announced because other students will just do the activities just to have extra points even though it is not really their passion.
This module gave me a lot of information and different perspectives with regards to assessment cycle and the proper use of multiple sources of the evidences of student learning. I would say that before I was not aware of the qualitative and quantitative methods of assessments and even if I do I would probably think that quantitative is better because as humans we tend to believe exact figures and nominal value and it is also easier to evaluate if we are only dealing with number the number of correct answers rather than analysing essays or interview with our students. I have learned that multiple measures including direct and indirect evidence are equally important and should all be factored to assess a student’s performance effectively.
Some educators are aware of the assessment cycle but unfortunately they are not using it and instead will result to linear progression of learning where there is no continuity of learning and no improvement. It is important that educators practice the cycle on every lesson and assessment. Ann Gravells have summarized the cycle as 1.) Identifying needs- which is knowing about the needs of the institution, teachers and students 2.) Aspects of planning learning-which is planning what you should deliver and how you will assess the students by preparing scheme of work, session plan and group profile. This should promote equality and diversity effectively 3.) Facilitating learning- is all about the teacher facilitating the process of learning to ensure that students are learning something 4.) Assessing learning- to assess the students on what they can do or cannot do and assess only on what you are supposed to assess. We can use initial, formative, summative and holistic types of assessment and we should ensure that concept of assessment should be valid, authentic, current, sufficient and reliable and ensure that we provide constructive feedbacks. 5.) Evaluating learning- this is evaluating the learning program by requesting feedback from peers, assessors, learners and self-assessment. The information gathered can be used to improve your practice and to improve yourself via continuing professional development.
In summary, I would like to emphasize that teaching as well as learning is a process and assessment is a cycle which will all contribute to achieve a better quality education which is a process too and will never achieve perfection, it cannot be achieved by the effort of the teacher alone but it should be worked on by everyone including parents, students, school management and the government. We are all part of the cycle and we should all contribute to improve the process. The teachers should maximize their effort to study and analyse the results of assessments and use them to improve the teaching and learning process and to ensure that constructive feedback is provided to the students.
REFERENCES
Gravells A. (2016, January 2). Teaching,learning and assessment cycle by Ann Gravells [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLt6OuwVc3L93y-jzutjJH8c8FYFJsO0p
Eunice Abadicio 