A+, B+, C+, D......
Although every teacher candidate's assessment experience within their elementary and secondary school differs from each other today I want to share with you mine. I do believe that assessment within the classroom is crucial to not only seeing able to witness and document a student's growth, strengths or difficulties but also to help students know what they need to do. In elementary school I was always in favour of receiving my feedback from my teachers, whether it be written feedback or percentage or letter grade - any feedback was better than none. There are two reasons for me enjoying the have my assessments returned to me: A) I enjoyed knowing if I did well on a test or assignment in which I prepared for or studied hard for - My mom always told me hard work paid off! and B) I always wanted to know what I could do to improve or grow in the subject if I did poorly.
This photo above shows all the different ways in which assessment is in the classroom. Words like feedback, learning, balance, achievement, equity, etc, is so important to be linked to assessment. I feel that assessment within a classroom is a must and is positive.
This above photo shows the benefits and outcome of both formative assessment within the classroom in addition to summative assessments create an improvement in the classroom, students' lives and the overall school.
I feel that my experience as a student and enjoying assessment and not having a bad experience with it makes me feel that it is a beneficial and crucial thing in elementary classrooms. All students like to know how they have done and what they need to do to do better. Assessments also provide no surprises when it comes to report or progress reports for the students' parents. If properly and consistently assessing the class and students is shared with the parents they can join with the teachers to ensure the students success - which is why teachers do what they do. A teacher's job is to make sure the student is succeeding and I think that assessments for the students will positively contribute to their success.
As an elementary student the form of assessment/ grading that I received was letter grades which was easy to understand where my achievements stood but as a student volunteer last year I was introduced to levels 1,2,3 and 4 for students and they seemed to enjoy those as well. Of course within high school and my undergraduate career I was assessed by percent and letter grades.
Thanks for stopping in today to read all about my assessment experience!! Come back and visit to check out what I learn in Assessment 8Y01!
Take care,
Emily De Melo
