Lauren Owsley - Free Response Ch.14

Free Response - Ch.14 Assessment 

Through reading the chapter on assessment, I in general, struggled with the concept of assessment as a whole. As a future teacher I know the importance of knowing your students ability level and making sure they are meeting certain standards, especially now with the new push on common core. However, I remember as a student, how unfair and detrimental assessments can be.

In terms of detriment, I attended a middle school that used T-CAP scores to place children in ability level classrooms. I was new to this school and the state of Tennessee so I had not taken the T-CAP yet. I was placed in the lowest ability level classroom and moved up as the year progressed. I got a great opportunity to see the differences in each of these classrooms. The lowest ability was treated very differently and the teachers assumed many negative things about this set of children, thus it was very hard to ever improve or get quality learning opportunities. The supplies and resources were non-existent as well. In the highest classroom, teachers were readily available to help and supplies were plenty. It was a different and positive mentality altogether when it came to high achieving students.

Because I experienced this, I often question what I will do in terms of assessment in my own classroom one day. I know that in order to instruct my students I have to know what they already understand and if they gain knowledge after I teach them. That is part of the learning process. However, I can't help but turn away from summative assessment. There are so many other ways to assess - yes, it will take more work on my part - but I believe it will create a better environment and more engaged students. Informal assessment is something that can be done in many ways, assesses more students fairly, and is a good way to gauge knowledge gains. The biggest problem I struggle with in summative assessment is that learning never stops so to have an end-all-be-all exam to see what your students learned then never come back to what they still struggle with does not make sense to me.