Monday, February 26, 2007

Assessment

Assessment is currently a hot topic. Several issues came up in our discussion. I'll go into more depth in future posts, but a couple of things really stand out for me.
  • I wasn't trained very much in "teacher school" about giving good assessments. Even more so, I wasn't really schooled in what to do with the information. I've done a lot of reading and researching to learn more.
  • The question of preparing students for High school seems to come up quite a bit. One of the ways that this is expressed is in assessment. One example, "should we have timed tests" because in high school, they have to be prepared for timed tests. A great question that gets at what underlies much of middle school.
  • Assessment lead to the big bugaboo of grades. What do grades mean? For whom? Do students really "earn" them? Do they truly reflect learning? What are grades composed of?
We'll take more about assessments as we go on.

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