Assessment and Evaluation - reaching the bar!

Sometimes, as learners, we don't like the word "evaluation" as it means we are being tested. However, we do like the concept of "grades" so that we can see how well we do. How is it that students can be so split between the same thing?

Assessment and evaluation are/should be utilized to gauge student learning using various methods and tools. According to Newcomb, et al, in chapter 14 of "Methods," we use assessment/evaluation to understand the needs of the learners, encourage instructional improvement, give motivation and self-appraisal for students, and develop instruction and grades. These are all important reasons for assessment, and I believe they effectively display its significance in the learning and teaching model.

There is an article by ASCD, however, that points out something that we should always remember in assessment - it should be FOR student learning, not OF student learning. I think this can be a gray area in instructional development, but this quote from the article really sums it up:

Unlike assessment of learning, which attempts to get a fix on what students know for the purposes of giving grades or evaluating schools, the array of test-like events in assessment for learning is always linked to the question “What's next instructionally?” Students are key players in this endeavor because one aim of this assessment approach is to empower students to monitor their own progress toward clearly understood curricular goals.

The author points out the concern of standardized tests in threatening this value of assessment. As national standardized tests are an example of an assessment OF learning, they are currently threatening to replace the need for frequent assessment FOR learning in the classroom, as schools are being threatened by poor standardized test results. The author calls for "instructionally sensitive accountability tests" with a few recommendations that would probably help with the standardized testing system. While I too am slightly opinionated about national/state standardized tests, I do not think I should digress from this blog entry much more... sooo...

What else about assessment? Well, there is the "how." We can use tests, careful to structure them properly and identify the best methods given the content. But we must maintain VALIDITY (making sure the content is tested properly) and RELIABILITY (making sure there is consistency in grading) for our tests. So, next time you pick one of the major test types (multiple choice, short answer, true/false, matching, essay), be sure you check that your test is valid and reliable. I used to think that testing was created to be tricky, to deceive the students, and in reading Methods (ch 14), it may seem that way, but after taking an educational psychology course that truly outlined the significance of assessment/test item structure, I agree that we really need to stick to the structure to evaluate genuine learning.

Another aspect of assessment that I think is not commonly considered, at least outside of Ag Ed, is affective assessment. We want to make sure our students are developing as a whole person, so why not assess them on it? They types of affective assessment listed in the Methods book were helpful to understand how we can go about pursuing effective whole person assessment.

And... PERFORMANCE! Whether it is a skill sheet or product evaluation, we have a great need for performance (psychomotor skill) assessment in agricultural education - we are, after all, known for our experiential learning foundations. One of the interesting things learned from this week's readings was the article on "Evaluating learning in lab settings" (by Warner, Myers). This article outlined some really cool CONCEPT MAPS that I have never seen/thought of to use for student assessment. Additionally, it proposed the "vee map" - a REALLY COOL reflection of assessing student achievement of the scientific method in a laboratory/experiment situation. I have never seen this model but intend to use it to make the scientific method more applicable to ag laboratory experiences!

Vee map example!

Compare/contrast concept map - simple but great to reflect understanding!

Then, let's not forget how we pull assessment together into GRADING. Students like grades... when they truly reflect their learning. Grades also must reflect objectives in the course/unit, otherwise the assessment structure of a program is useless. Grading should also include variety (of assessment) to accommodate different student learning/testing styles throughout the course. Within grading, we must be RELIABLE (mentioned above) so we have to be sure to use RUBRICs effectively! These rubrics, as identified by Stoughton and Myers ("Creativity and working with rubrics"), can either be task-specific or generic. Within each of those two types, we can develop an analytical (proficiency) rubric or a holistic (achieved it) rubric. We just need to keep certain our criteria and rubric values are appropriate for the content learned and assessed.