The Goal Of Educational Assessment

Not only can students benefit from formative assessments, but so can teachers. “This type of assessment focuses you more clearly on what your students are learning, rather than simply what you are trying to teach students” (Sweet). These assessments can be helpful to teachers, by providing information about what is needed to be worked on with their students. It also gives a clear understanding of how their students are comprehending the information that is being given. Furthermore, by doing formative assessments, students can get feedback from their teachers. This may be very helpful to students, because they can progress and develop based on the feedback. It is necessary for teachers to take on a leading role in the classroom by, “allowing students to practice, fail, and incorporate your feedback into their performances to make every student better at what he or she does in your classroom” (Sweet). In other words, formative assessments help student practice a concept before the actual test, and it also develops the students’ strengths. Formative assessments are also a good way to ask any necessary questions that help students to obtain a difficult idea. “It gives students the opportunity to seek out assistance in a timely manner and helps you direct students to appropriate resources when necessary” (Sweet). By asking these questions, and by examining their errors on the

In the classroom we assess formally through assignments, tests, quizzes, performances, projects, and surveys; or informally through questioning and dialogue, observing, and anecdotal note taking. In any of these instances, we may or may not be engaged in formative assessment: the determining factor is not the type of assessment we use, but rather how we and our students use the information.

As previously mentioned, formative assessments can be described as systematic processes of collection of evidence regarding students’ learning (Nunn, 2011). The information derived from the formative assessments is used to inform teaching practices and act as

It has been widely accepted that the use of formative assessment practices enhances the students’ learning. Recently, Cizek [1] referred formative assessment as a collaborative processes engaged in by educators and students for the purpose of understanding the students’ learning and conceptual organization, identification of strengths, diagnosis of weaknesses, areas for improvement, and as a source of information that teachers can use in instructional planning and students can use in deepening their understandings and improving their achievement.

This prompted further studies into the importance of assessment for learning and in 1998 Black and Wiliam – as part of the Assessment Reform Group - published ‘Inside the Black Box: Raising the Standards through Classroom Assessment’. This publication took 9 years of research to complete and reviewed over 250 sources. The aim of this review was to highlight the importance of assessment for learning in raising the standards in the classroom.

Educational assessment is the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community (class, workshop, or other organized group of learners), the institution, or the educational system as a whole. According to the Academic Exchange Quarterly: "Studies of a theoretical or empirical nature (including case studies, portfolio studies, exploratory, or experimental work) addressing the assessment of learner aptitude and preparation, motivation and learning styles, learning outcomes in achievement and satisfaction in different educational contexts are all welcome, as are studies addressing

“the process used by teachers and students to recognize and respond to student learning to enhance that learning, during the learning” (Cowie & Bell, 1999, p. 32) is one way to define formative assessments. This definition stresses the idea of formative assessment being a continuous process which should improve teaching, learning, and achievement. Therefore, when reflecting upon the assessment strategies observed within my classroom to be most the effective in progressing learning the one thing that comes to my mind is a formative assessment. The best way to understand formative assessment is by comparing it and contrasting it with summative assessments. In this essay, I will critically analyze how formative assessment may be used

Assessment– Assessment should not just be post-lesson learning, it should be ONGOING, from before they have learned, during, and afterwards. The teacher feautured in the webcast for this module made it evident that properly displaying success criteria is vital to make sure students are aware of how they will be assessed.

An educational assessment is a process of documenting and using data to understand and analyze the knowledge skills, attitudes, and beliefs to redefine program and improve a student’s learning. The data can be used to assess the achievement of learning outcomes or based on data, which shows inferences about achieve patterns. Furthermore, the information allows educators to focus on individual learning plan, learning community, or educational institution. One assessment that requires further analysis is the American College Test (ACT) used for college admission and high school achievement.

Assessment for many years has been used in a summative manor to quantify student’s abilities to compare students and schools performances. Although necessary to some degree this assessment of learning is using assessment ineffectively as assessment when used properly is a very effective learning tool. Assessment for Learning is defined as “ the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where learners are the their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there” (Assessment Reform Group, 2002).

Assessment and Evaluation are two very different aspects in the realm of education that appears to be fairly similar, both are the different sides of the same coin which is testing. The marked differences in both assessment and evaluation are especially important. Assessment refers to the referral and collection of data to describe or better understand an issue, whereas evaluation is done by referring to data by comparing data in order to judge and decide if the program or syllabus is up to a certain standard or quality. Assessment takes variables into account, as patterns that are consistent in data that are liable to changes can be taken into account. Assessment is the measurement of data, and the results the syllabus has produced, how students have processed the material and the various approaches, both prior and after the whole process. Educators will then be able to gauge student’s progress and level in a subject. Both assessment and evaluation will enable educators and the school administrators to tailor the syllabus and program according to the type of students.

As educators we need assessment to improve the quality of student learning and the assessment will give feedback in which provide effective strategies for educators. Also provides student measurement on their progression on what they are learning in the classroom. The focus is to support and

Assessment is an inherent and expected component of the education process designed to ascertain student’s knowledge and understanding via a varied range of assessment tasks, over multiple occasions against the achievement framework of syllabus outcomes (Cumming & Maxwell, 2004). Syllabus outcomes guide teaching and learning activities by directing the content towards tasks that enables the capture of reliable evidence to be used in evaluating achievement of students and teachers, in order to feed the future learning of both (Harlen & James, 1997). For students, judging achievement attainment via carefully constructed assessments, identifies their current understanding, learning and skills level, where improvement could be made plus strategies to get there while additionally informing teaching practice to further future learning by adjusting lesson instruction (Shepard, 2000).

As an increasing number of students are studying at university level which has become a common topic for discussion today. More and more researchers pay close attention to this as well as the forms or methods of assessment. Universities across the globe have a variety of methods. Different methods of assessment accomplish distinct aims, and students should be tested with different forms of assessments according to their learning styles. This essay will discuss whether there should be greater flexibility in forms or methods of assessment at university education.

Assessment can be used for different purposes in education. This is reflected in Wiggins and McTighe’s (2005) definition of assessment as “the act of determining the extent to which the desired results are on the way to being achieved and to what extent they have been achieved”. Even in this simple definition, two different purposes are identified: looking at results as completed and looking at results as in process.