Chapter Four: Ongoing Assessment

Assessment is so much more than the spelling tests you take every Friday or those standardized test where you bubble, bubble, bubble and pray that you're not marking C too many times. There are many types of assessments, from formal to informal, from personal to content-based. A teacher must recognize that assessment is much, much more than pencil-and-paper tests. Assessment can tkae many forms. It can be something as simple as watching a student perform a task and deciding whether or not he/she needs further assistance or has achieved proficiency. It can be a comprehensive exam taken at the end of the year. It can be just about anything that measures student performance.

When used correctly, assessment is one of the most important parts of instruction. Good assessments can tell a teacher what a student knows and what a student needs to know; it guides instruction. Assessment should be ongoing, meaning that it should not just be something that occurs at a lessons end. A teacher can use assessment throughout a lesson to let him or her know when adjustments need to be made. If done properly, assessments can save a lot of time.

One of the most interesting topics to me in this chapter is authentic assessment. I am big on the idea of preparing students for the real world. Authentic assessment is a great way to do this, because it gives students a chance to do something that is similar to what they might one day do outside of school. I like authentic assessment, too, because it can help students begin to identify their interests. A student my find social studies boring if all he/she does is take notes, answers questions, and take pencil-paper tests. But if a student participates in a simulated archaeological dig, then he/she might discover a true passion.

Lingering Questions:
-How does a teacher find time to keep track of ongoing assessments? Is it something you get better at over time?

-Is there any way that we could restructure education so that standardized tests don't have so much influence over the way school is run?

Principles p. 75-76

3. Motivation and self-directed learning, which includes building motivation to read and learn and providing students with the instruction and supports needed for independent learning tasks they will face after graduation.

Students need to learn how to learn. As teachers, we do not want to merely supply our students with knowledge; we want to teach them the strategies to get any knowledge they need. We are guiding students along the path to becoming successful adults. In the world after school, students will not have information fed to them. If they want or need to know something, they will be responsible for finding it themselves. Thus, we need to teach students many different routes and strategies for finding information and learning new things, and then teach them how to synthesize what they find. With the technology available today, it is likely that students may find several sources, and they need to be instructed on evaluating these sources and picking out what will be helpful to them.

Another important factor raised by this principle, perhaps one of the most important topics in education, is that of motivation. As the old adage goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. We can have the best strategies available, but if our students don't want to learn, none of that matters. Thus, it is important that we make school interesting, fun, and challenging for our students. It is an outdated notion that school should feel like work. No one wants a job that they hate, so why should we make school that way for students? If students enjoy their work and feel that it has meaning, they will be much more inclined to do their work, just like adults. As teachers, we have to make school fun for our students. This does not mean that we have to play all day, but we can give students projects that feel like real-world work, which will create a sense of purpose in them.

Chapter Three: Pursuing High Expectations in an Era of Accountability

One of the most important issues any teacher faces is the necessity to have high expectations for our students. Our students are only going to give as much as we expect from them. Thus, we should set high, but achievable goals for every student in the classroom. We cannot only expect the high achievers to do well. This sort of expectation will give the teacher a mindset to encourage all students to do their best.

Furthermore, school is becoming a place where students learn how to learn as opposed to filling their brains with as much content as possible. It's more important that students come away from their education with the ability to find out anything they need to know. Students need to know concepts, not necessarily content. Actually, when concepts are taught correctly, the content will follow, both naturally and meaningfully. We want to create lifelong learners, people who can problem solve and synthesize information, allowing them to be successful in any path they choose.

Here are the main points I got from this chapter:

• All students must improve, not just the school overall.
• We must teach Big Ideas and look to the standards for our curriculum. The textbook alone is not enough.
• Good literacy skills are necessary for learning in a Standards-Based Big Ideas curriculum.
• Students must be assessed on Big Ideas.
• Assessment should guide instruction--teach where the students are.
• Teaching strategies used should be backed up with scientific research.
• Students must be taught comprehension strategies.
• Set high expectations for ALL learners.
• We don't read every text in the same way.
• Try to connect the lesson with the students' lives so that it becomes meaningful for them.
• It's important to teach students how to learn (learning strategies) and not just the content.

Lingering Questions:

• How do we teach the Big Ideas in a school where the curriculum is focused on the textbook and direct instruction?
• Where are some good places to find research-based teaching strategies?