Should Tests Be Taught At School?

I believe assessment is important and is the basis of planning for instruction, whether it is diagnostic prior to learning, formative during units or lessons, or summative to evaluate student learning. Rowan’s quote in Every Teacher’s Guide to Assessment, "After all, in the end, the problem is less the idea of testing itself, but how we design them, apply, them, and make use of their data." definitely has an impact on my assessment practices. I feel it is necessary to make sure the student acquires all aspects of the learning. Assessment should be used to bring a value for students. Within my instruction, I implement daily formative assessments which may include turn and share, quick writes, graphic organizers, online discussion responses, KahootIt, and other forms. Designing the appropriate formative assessment to match the lesson is important to assess how the learning is taught and whether the students are showing progress. In addition, I have worked on building blocks of formative assessments in checklist style leading up to the point of reviewing for a summative test. Each of these are checked off as completed and instant feedback is given. Feedback from an assessment is essential to student learning and how a teacher will ensure the content is being acquired.

I am a strong believer that one test defines a students. Therefore, variety is key when assessing students. When using formative assessment I use student reflections, journal entries, exit cards in addition to non verbal communication such as thumbs up or down. I also make anadotal notes on students to help assess the overall learning journey of the student. When using summative assessments, I use district assessments, state assessments, portfolios, short answer, multiple choice, and student based projects. In all forms of assessments, students are provided the appropriate accommodations. My learning goal for assessing students is to have a valid assessment that demonstrate the student’s understanding of the specific skill. It is crucial that I understand the purpose of the assessments and the content that is being taught, therefore, I often start instruction with the assessment piece in

These assessments offer a better view of true student learning than standardized tests. Students must be able to to think and work together to find a solution as opposed to the multiple guess tests used to measure student achievement. To truly understand what knowledge students possess and own the assessment must be able to evaluate true student

My personal philosophy of assessment consists of several components. The first component is that both formative and summative assessment belong in the classroom. The second component is that, although teachers should teach what is on the STAAR tests, they should try to avoid just “teaching to the test” the entire year. I also believe that different forms of assessments should be used throughout the year. Finally, I believe that assessments should always be structured in a way that is fair to the students, and addresses all learning styles. Overall, tests belong in the classroom, but should not be the focus of instruction and should be fair for all students.

They do not do an acceptable job in furthering a child’s learning. Learning is much more than a test. There are students that may do very well at choosing the right answer, but not truly be learning anything that will help them later on in life. “Standardized tests, by virtue of being multiple-choice, don’t allow for students to express themselves.” (Evans) Students learn the most by expressing themselves to others. Bringing to light the flaws in standardized testing, this shows that in reality, these tests hold students back in their learning. Since standardized testing is such a big part, other important things are being held back from students because of the time in the classroom that is spent preparing students for these

From my school days I have bitter memories of going through various tests to show my daily learning in every mid and end of term test. These tests were mainly recall-based testing which made me feel that my memory was tested rather than my understanding. Furthermore the scores were very important to each student. Every student’s scores were at the entrance of the classroom, which meant that all of the students could see everyone else’s score. On the contrary I never got feedback to support our learning further. Therefore, I was not fully on board with the idea of using assessment as the foundation of learning and teaching the curriculum. Seeing ‘Assessment is for Learning’ [AifL] used in practice has shifted my views on assessments, as it was

The question of assessment in the "school system, individual schools, and teachers has evoked strong and sometimes violent emotions from the educational community, the general public and their legislative representatives"(Brown & Knight, 1994). Assessment based on standardized tests has been looked at very closely over the recent years, and some people have even mentioned that they be eliminated completely. Those who feel traditional methods should be replaced by alternative methods. These people feel that demonstration, exhibition, investigation, oral response, portfolio, and written response's are all examples of

I think my answers to the quiz are supportive of classroom assessment done right. By that I mean that as long as the assessments are bing used to help the teachers ability to teach the material and the student is able to show their progress and learning then yes I support assessments. On the other hand if the assessment is done just to calculate a grade or to meet requirements of the school then no those kind of assessments are not necessary.

As an educator it is very important that a teacher uses different methods to teach the variety of different learning styles, and it is also important that the teacher uses a variety of assessment procedures. People don’t learn the same, and people don’t test the same either. I personally, am horrible when it comes to taking multiple choice and problem solving type assessments. I do better with essay and writing assessments, presentations, and teaching back what I have learned. With the understanding of how I can best be assessed myself, it will be important when I am the teacher that I use many methods to assess and grade my students work.

Tests that measure as little and as poorly as multiple-choice exams cannot provide meaningful accountability. Instead of being accountable to parents, community, teachers and students, schools become "accountable" to an unregulated testing industry. Students are not learning how to use the subjects in the real world, but for a

When some American schools started to practice what they called “placement exams”, they were simply that; evaluations that would place college students into classes that would challenge them to the extent that they were still able to flourish. This developed as early as the 17th century, in universities like Harvard and Massachusetts Law. It was not until the 1900s that exams for placement were transitioned into more primary schools, and even then it was commonly used for placement in grades (Conley, 12). However, as time went on, these tests morphed into a method to generate likeliness between all students. In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act was endorsed by congress. This statute recertified the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and

For my author study I have chosen to research the ideas and contributions of Robert Marzano. Marzano is a well-known expert in the field of contemporary assessment. He is known for his educational research on topics including standards-based assessment and high-yield teaching strategies. Marzano has used this research to design assessment programs that have been implemented in K-12 classrooms around the country (ASCD, 2015). He has also authored several books including Classroom Assessment and Grading That Work, which I will reference in this paper. Assessment is such a crucial component of teaching. With the changes that are occurring in the field of education as standards-based instruction is implemented, it is important to learn about effective ways of assessing students that accurately demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. Robert Marzano’s work helps to illuminate these important standards-based grading and reporting systems that teachers can use to help their students.

Seymour Sarason once wrote that “we live in a test-conscious, test-giving culture in which the lives of people are in part determined by their test performance” (1959, p. 26). Taking tests are a large part of a child’s experience in school and serve many purposes. Tests range from the high-stakes context of yearly standardized testing mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB; U.S. Congress, 2002) to a variety of classroom tests which serve to monitor student progress as well as drive teacher instructional practices (Salend, 2009).

The debate on standardized tests and its adequacy in testing a student’s knowledge about a subject has been going on for many years. Tests, in general, has been around for centuries and without them there would not be progress and no gleams of progress. Students ranging from elementary school to high school have experienced standardized testing. Teachers, educators, and parents are also involved in the students’ lives, which revolves around the tests, one way or another. There are many views on standardized test. However, the three most common views are: educators who are for standardized test which benefits students, educators who are at the other extreme of opposing standardized tests, and educators who view tests are a benefit if done in appropriate amounts.

Informal assessment allows students to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways which can benefit all students. It can include group or individual projects, presentations, essays, experiments, or demonstrations. Each of these can allow for “knowledge that transfers from one situation to another [which] is based on students’ abilities to understand central principles, see connections and make distinctions, and be strategic in attacking problems and analyzing information” (Darling-Hammond, p. 285). A variety of assessment methods allow for this to happen and for students to use their personal strengths to demonstrate understanding of the information. “Research into students’ preferences for alternative assessments shows that the assessments that have been positively evaluated by students were more authentic and thus made learning more realistic and powerful” (as cited in Brown, Irving, Peterson, and Hirschfeld, 2009, p. 99). Students should be able to think creatively and take hold of their own education and learning because they must ideally be prepared for a rapidly changing society where they must be able to adapt and formulate their own solutions. Teachers are able to provide feedback to the children so they know what was done effectively and what needs to be modified. Rather than teachers pressuring students to show understanding through a single examination, they will have opportunities to confidently demonstrate knowledge with less