Assessment is a means to identify a student’s progress and abilities within a course or a specific assignment. Assessment should be fair to all students and should not be unnecessarily difficult. The assessment should, however, challenge students to display their knowledge that they learned. As the assigned text explained, assessment “should motivate students to learn and should promote deep learning”. These key points really stuck out to me as I read this text. During my high school year, I had many forms of assessment that did not motivate me to learn or to learn deeply. Many assessments were just variations of tests which required me to memorize facts and regurgitate them onto the test. After the test was over, I would forget the majority of the information. This form of assessment caused more stress than necessary and was not beneficial to my overall learning. For me, I believe assessment should aim to push students into thinking more deeply about the subject and connecting it to their own lives. This way, information will not be forgotten after the assessment and the students will gain a much more valuable learning experience.
I think that there is definitely a strong connection between assessment, classroom environment, and instructional practices. As teachers, we want our classroom environment to be a safe, positive space where students feel comfortable, welcome and ready to learn. We also want to create an atmosphere that fosters deep learning and motivates all students to succeed. This criteria that we have for a classroom environment should be the same, or similar, to the criteria that we use when creating assessment. Assessment should be engaging and allow students to think broadly. It should also allow students to be comfortable. By comfortable, I mean that students should be allowed to make variations to the assessment to fit their needs and unique abilities. Not all students learn the same way and there are multiple ways to achieve each outcome. Students should be given flexibility within each assessment so that they can be successful.
Switching up the way in which we give assessment is very important. Tests and essays should not be the only forms of assessment used in a classroom. Projects, creative assessments, and assessments that use 21st century literacy are all important and necessary forms of assessment that should be included. Assessment should not be something that students continually dread. It should be engaging, meaningful, and worthwhile to their learning. In addition, instructional practices should constantly be adapted and altered to better fit the needs of students. New information and research surrounding instructional practices/ strategies and assessment should be read by the teacher. This research should be read in order to follow the recent pedagogy and create an even more productive and meaningful learning environment. As a teacher I plan to try my best to stay up to date on recent studies surrounding assessment pedagogy so that I can be better informed as I make decisions for my students. Overall, assessment is a very important aspect of the learning environment and should be fair, meaningful, and adaptable to the unique needs of all students.