Blog Post Week 1- Assessment

Retrieved October 28th 2016 From: JPhotostyle

As I make my way into the seventh week of the Teacher Education Program, I am starting to finally get the hang of it. This week, we started our assessment course, and honestly up to this point, I have not had a tremendous amount of time in the classroom setting. I have been observing in my placement school, however have only had the opportunity to be in the classroom three times so far.


I have noticed that teachers seem to be straying away from the "traditional" testing methods and have become more open to the concepts of differentiated assessment. I do find the task of assessment to be daunting as you need to consider the needs of each individual students, and there may be students in the classroom that have different ways of portraying their ideas.


I remember being tested in school and remember how anxious the traditional method would make me. Being formally tested can be nerve-wracking at any age, even as a university student, the thought of sitting in a gym with hundreds of other students and having the pressure of being done on time makes it seem like it goes by so much faster.


I do believe that traditional assessment can take away from students, it can take away their creativity and the nervousness they may be experiencing may hold them back. Throughout the year I feel like there should be many different options available to students so that they will be assessed in different ways. Traditional testing is necessary in some aspects as you do need to know your students ability level and to make sure that they are being tasked appropriately, however I feel like individual creativity is becoming such a big part of today's education that every student should have the opportunity to be evaluated based on something that would come across as slightly less daunting.


I do look forward to having the opportunity to be in my classroom for my placement more frequently as I have not yet had the chance to experience my associate teacher's methods of assessment and I feel like there is a lot I can learn from someone who has been in the role for a long time. I do feel that there is a lot of pressure on students to succeed, and that the social standards of success can bring a student down if they are not graded where they thought they should have been.


Based on that thought, this is something that does appear at every grade level, we are all so focused on making sure that we receive a level 4 grade, however are we leaving ourselves enough time to maintain a healthy lifestyle? Something I would like to focus on when I am in my teaching block and even observing in my classroom is how effective different types of assessment can be. Is traditional testing the best way to go or will students strive through different methods?

Retrieved October 28th 2016 from: Flickr