Assessing and Evaluating Student Learning

I found this reading to be very useful in thinking about how I am going to assess students in my future classroom. I have experienced classes in the past in which some teachers focused on the "knowing that" portion of literature (225). The reading describes the "knowing that" as knowing "names of certain characters or authors, settings for texts, or definitions for certain concepts" (225). While I enjoyed these sorts of classes because memorizing such things was easier for me, I did not do as much critical thinking about the texts. Also, because I knew there was a certain correct answer for a question, I would write what I believed the teacher wanted to see rather than what I actually thought about the text. With my numerous experiences with "correct answer" tests, I found the alternatives to be intriguing and potentially useful for my teaching practice. I like the idea of the Journal/Blog entry because I think this is one way to get students writing, whether or not it is necessarily academic. Being able to express their feelings and struggles of life in a safe, private manner (they have the option of whether or not I read it) I believe will help students with identifying their emotions and by doing so, be able to relate to characters in the literature we are reading. Another idea I like is that of "teaching peers to give feedback". While at times this may be more stressful for students because they do not want their peers to judge them, I believe that with guidance from me, this is an opportunity for students to build upon their cooperative skills that they can use later on in life. While it may not be the most fun thing for students to give feedback on each others work, working together and reviewing someones work is a common practice in most work situations. One thing that I noticed with all of the different ideas of assessment was including criterion for how you are going to assess the students. I find this especially important because I remember the frustration of having a teacher grade me on something that I was unaware of or unprepared for. My goal is for all of my assessments to be fair and valid.