As an educator, assessment is one of the
most important aspects of your job and one of the most helpful things you can
do for your students. This is because assessment is much more than a letter
grade or percentage on a piece of paper, but is a representation of a student’s
development in their learning and an indication of how that learning compares
to curriculum expectations. Without a doubt, the most important resource that a
teacher can use in order to gain valuable information regarding the topic of
assessment is the ministry of education document called Growing Success. Here
you will see the policies and procedures that teachers in Ontario must follow
when they are assessing their students, but it has also had a tremendous impact
on my beliefs about assessment.
For
the most past, Growing Success did not radically alter my views on my
assessment, but affirmed many of my beliefs by explaining why those beliefs
were important. For example, I strongly believe in equitable practices when it
comes to assessment in that I think that students should receive assessment
that is appropriate to them, not what is necessarily equal to their classmates.
Growing Success how this can be done through modifications, alternative
learning or accommodations. Through these principles students can attain the
type of learning that suits their needs. For example, if a student has a
difficulty in hearing because of an impairment than a teacher might accommodate
that student’s needs by providing more visuals in their instruction rather than
oral teaching.
Another
way to demonstrate how Growing Success has altered my beliefs in assessment is
that I always believed that assessment was done by giving an overall grade in
each subject based on the material submitted. However, Growing Success showed
the importance of categorizing the material and assessing various skills as
each student works through their courses. For example, Growing Success explains
each category of knowledge and skills as being: knowledge and understanding,
thinking, communication, and application indicated on the Achievement Chart. I remember
always seeing these words in secondary school, but never really understanding
why. It stresses the importance of constructing units where all over these
categories are assessed in a balanced manner so that the students receive a
well-rounded instruction on that unit. To continue onto this, the document
lists how indicators can be used in assessment tools in order to demonstrate
what it means to reach each level. These indicators helped me think about how I
would describe each level to my own students.
Finally,
my most common misconception about assessment before being introduced to
Growing Success was assuming that assessment was simply for evaluating a
student’s learning. While that is true, Growing Success’s breakdown of assessment
for, as, and of learning taught me about demonstrated that assessment is much
more. For instance, it describes assessment for learning as the process of
gathering evidence about the students in order to know where to begin. This would
include diagnostic testing and or just simply asking students what they know
about a topic before the teacher begins to teach it. However, it was learning
about assessment as learning that really changed my belief about assessment
being conducted solely by the teacher. Growing Success describes assessment as learning
as assessment which is done by the students after it being modeled by the
teacher. It also talks about how this is important because it gets students to
monitor their own learning and be able to formulate what they can do in order
to be successful. I now realize the importance of allowing this type of
assessment because students can understand how to self-regulate their own
progress and determine the steps they can take in order to be successful. I now
believe that the best way for students to become successful in learning and
anything that they do, is to know what success looks like. Once they do, they
can begin to emulate what is required of them to attain success.
The
Growing Success document has been a wealth of knowledge about assessment for me
not because it explains what assessment, but why it is important and how it can
be conducted. In the end, this document has confirmed my belief on why
assessment is so important in education, it is not just a method of evaluating,
but it has the sole purpose of improving student learning. The ultimate goal
for an effective teacher.
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