Throughout this entire article, I made one connection after another to my personal experiences in education. Fortunately, I did not struggle as much with this article as I did with the previous one. Immediately after reading the first two paragraphs, I could empathize with what this author was communicating. I had no formal educational training as a teacher either when I was first hired by San Jose Unified in 1997. I too when through the process of doing exactly what I was expected to do except for thinking outside of the box. I fell into the trap of viewing assessments as just "tests." They were confined to paper tests that were assigned a grade for which I therefore transferred over to the report card. I failed back then to take in all the considerations of different types of assessment that this article discussed. Assessments are not to be confined to the end of the chapter or unit tests. Assessments have a range of components that a teacher must pull together to create the whole picture. I am understanding that now; unfortunately, I did not see it back then. I had become programmed that first year to give tests without full understanding of their true purpose. How does that make me feel now? I feel relieved that I have grown and expanded my understanding of the concept of assessments, and I am farther along on the path than I was over eleven years ago.
Assessments go beyond the paper test. Assessments include the observations by the teacher on a daily basis. A student will demonstrate in many different ways his or her understanding of a particular subject area. As a teacher I have to open my eyes to that. The author makes the point that a teacher has to find a match between the student and his or her appropriate method of assessment. For some of my students this is not necessarily the paper test. It might be showing understanding through other means like notetaking, questions and comments in class discussions, or other practical measures. As an example, the unit on money was very difficult for the majority of my first graders to grasp. After giving the assessment provided in Hartcourt Brace, I knew that my assessment could not start and end here. The pictures of the coins provided on the test confused them. I then decided that I needed to go beyond just the paper test and utilize my intervention block to pull students as necessary to demonstrate with coins money amounts that I had given them. I asked them to show me as many ways as they could to make the same amount but using different coin combinations. This yielded much more valid results than the plain paper test. Periodically, I decided to retest this unit by pulling them individually during the course of the school year. Assessments are always being given in different ways on a daily basis; I just need to fine tune that skill and use those observations in calculating results.
I liked the idea about carrying around a clipboard to take notes on students because all students work and interactions qualify as worthy assessments. Indeed a teacher's ability to connect a students personal struggles with his or her performance gives great insight into the student's overall performance. Fortunately, I believe this is one area where I have some awareness, and I take it into consideration when determining the overall picture. Each year in every classroom there are always students who are encountering events like divorces, poverty, single parent households; the list goes on. I think we would all agree that these situations definately have an impact on the child in school. This is another piece of the assessment puzzle. Another useful piece of this article is that the author describes assessments as tools to make sure students at different levels are working at their level. In my two classes from last year I had a whole range of levels. In designing assessments and evaluating all available observed information, I see that I have the power to give them options to demonstrate what they know and how to express that knowledge. Finally, this awesome article concluded with the idea that assessment is not just confined to me as the teacher. It involves my working with my students as my partners.