Reflection Session 15

SIENTE USTED QUE ESTA ASIGNATURA LE AYUDA A CUMPLIR EL PERFIL DE EGRESO DE LA CARRERA? DE QUÉ FORMA? 

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  I think the subject Ecucational Evaluation  is important for ESL teachers to develop relevant assessment criteria to grade a student's English ability. A good assessment item for an English learner requires all areas of language to be evaluated. The criteria used to grade a student's performance can be used for report cards and feedback. First, a student needs to be assessed on her effort and participation in class. We as teacher need to judge whether a student has been making an effort to learn English and has participated fully in class time. Vocabulary can be assessed to determine if a student is working on broadening her vocabulary. Pronunciation and reading are indicators of a student's oral language ability. Some other criteria to use during an evaluation are behavior, writing, listening and rate of improvement. All this criteria we are  beeing thought in this subject and gives us the ability to be a competent teacher in terms of evalution.

Assessment Instruments

CLASS ACTIVITY 12/13:
Rubric Presentation

Assessment Instruments

Rubric Advantages

• Rubrics improve student performance by clearly showing the student how their work will be evaluated and what is expected.
• Rubrics help students become better judgesof the quality of their own work.
• Rubrics allow assessment to be more objective and consistent.
• Rubrics force the teacher to clarify his/her criteria in specific terms.
• Rubrics reduce the amount of time teachers spend evaluating student work.
• Rubrics provide useful feedback to the teacher regarding the effectiveness of the instruction.
• Rubrics are easy to use and easy to explain. 

Here you can find the link of our rubric we made in teamwork : Rubric 

CLASS ACTIVITY 11:

OBSERVATION TECHNIQUES

Assessment Strategies and Tools: Checklists, Rating Scales and Rubrics

Checklists, rating scales and rubrics are tools that state specific criteria and allow teachers and students to gather information and to make judgements about what students know and can do in relation to the outcomes. They offer systematic ways of collecting data about specific behaviours, knowledge and skills.

The quality of information acquired through the use of checklists, rating scales and rubrics is highly dependent on the quality of the descriptors chosen for assessment. Their benefit is also dependent on students’ direct involvement in the assessment and understanding of the feedback provided.

The purpose of checklists, rating scales and rubrics is to:

• provide tools for systematic recording of observations
• provide tools for self-assessment
• provide samples of criteria for students prior to collecting and evaluating data on their work
• record the development of specific skills, strategies, attitudes and behaviours necessary for demonstrating learning
• clarify students' instructional needs by presenting a record of current accomplishments.

 REFLECTION/SUMMARY

Checklists usually offer a yes/no format in relation to student demonstration of specific criteria. This is similar to a light switch; the light is either on or off. They may be used to record observations of an individual, a group or a whole class.Rating Scales allow teachers to indicate the degree or frequency of the behaviours, skills and strategies displayed by the learner. To continue the light switch analogy, a rating scale is like a dimmer switch that provides for a range of performance levels. Rating scales state the criteria and provide three or four response selections to describe the quality or frequency of student work.Teachers can use rating scales to record observations and students can use them as self-assessment tools. Teaching students to use descriptive words, such as always, usually,sometimes and never helps them pinpoint specific strengths and needs. Rating scales also give students information for setting goals and improving performance. In a rating scale, the descriptive word is more important than the related number. The more precise and descriptive the words for each scale point, the more reliable the tool.

Effective rating scales use descriptors with clearly understood measures, such as frequency. Scales that rely on subjective descriptors of quality, such as fair, good or excellent, are less effective because the single adjective does not contain enough information on what criteria are indicated at each of these points on the scale.

Rubrics are increasingly recognized as a way to both effectively assess student learning and communicate expectations directly, clearly and concisely to students. The inclusion of rubrics in a teaching resource provides opportunities to consider what demonstrations of learning look like, and to describe stages in the development and growth of knowledge, understandings and skills. To be most effective, rubrics should allow students to see the progression of mastery in the development of understandings and skills.

Rubrics should be constructed with input from students whenever possible. A good start is to define what quality work looks like based on the learning outcomes. Exemplars of achievement need to be used to demonstrate to students what an excellent or acceptable performance is. This provides a collection of quality work for students to use as reference points. Once the standard is established, it is easy to define what exemplary levels and less-than-satisfactory levels of performance look like. The best rubrics have three to five descriptive levels to allow for discrimination in the evaluation of the product or task. Rubrics may be used for summative purposes to gauge marks by assigning a score to each of the various levels.

CLASS ACTIVITY 10:

Assessment Types and Procedures

Educational assessment is the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community (class, workshop, or other organized group of learners), the institution, or the educational system as a whole. 

Setting and Managing Learning Goals

The first step in conducting assessment is setting the learning goals. Once the learning goals are formulated and agreed upon, multiple forms of assessment may follow. These assessment procedures are: tests, compositions, presentations, projects, portfolios, observations, interviews, questionnaires, and learning logs and journals (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1998).

Tests and Examinations

Two kinds of tests can be used to assess students’ learning: standardized and teacher-made. Tests and quizzes are given to assess how much each student knows and what students still need to learn. The procedure for giving tests is as follows:

• Students learn for the test in cooperative groups

• Students take the test individually and make two sets of answers. One is to be graded by the teacher and the other is kept for group discussions

• Students retake the test in their cooperative learning group

When the students meet and retake the test in cooperative groups the task is to answer each question correctly and the goal is to make sure that everybody in the group understands the materials and procedures covered by the test (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1998).

Compositions and Presentations

Two of the most common performances assessed are compositions and presentations. The use of cooperative groups to assess students’ performances meets the following goals: allows students to engage in the performance frequently, provide immediate and detailed feedback, lets students observe closely the work of others and see the strengths and drawbacks, and provide the labor needed for engaging in performances. (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec)

When working in pairs, for instance, the students follow these procedures: discuss and outline each others’ composition in pairs, research the topic individually, write the first paragraph of each composition in pairs, write the composition alone, edit each other’s composition, rewrite the composition alone, re-edit each other’s compositions, sign-off on partner’s composition verifying that it is ready to be handed in, and process the quality of the pair work.

Individual and Group Projects

As an assessment procedure projects allow students to use multiple learning styles and strategies. Using these with cooperative learning enhances the complexity and elaboration of the projects as more students bring more ideas to the process. 

Portfolios

A portfolio as an assessment procedure is a collection of a student’s work in an area, showing growth, self-reflection, and achievement. Portfolios can also show a cooperative group’s progress (see Cooperative Group Portfolio box).

Observing

While tests, compositions, projects, and portfolios show whether or not students can reach a correct answer, they do not show the quality of the reasoning strategies the students use and the effective use of social skills in cooperative groups.  Consequently, observation becomes one of the most important assessment procedures. There are three stages in observing students’ actions: prepare for observation by deciding who the observers are and what actions they are to observe, observe formal and/or informal, and summarize the results for students’ use (Johnson, Johnso, & Holubec, 1998).

   

      Interviewing

When observing students at work, the teacher can interview them to find out about their reasoning process and strategies. The personal nature of the interviews allows the teacher to build a positive relationship with the student. An interview can be used for assessment and teaching purposes.

Attitude Questionnaires

Attitude questionnaires have been developed to show the attitudes students have towards a subject area. Obtaining good grades doesn’t mean that the students really like the subject matter. 

Logs and Journals

Learning logs and journals help students keep track and reflect on their learning experiences. Logs refer to short entries related to the subject matter being studied. Journals entries are more related to personal observations and feelings. The teachers can assign point values to both logs and journals entries (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec).

Teams and Assessment

Educators need to start their instruction, assessment, and reporting actions by forming a collegial teaching team. The team constructs the assessment and reporting process by making rubrics, implementing the rubrics effectively, and reporting the data to interested audiences (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec 1998).

CLASS ACTIVITY 9:

Assessment Principles

Evaluation is a process to determine the extent to which the instructional objectives  have been achieve by students. There are principles which provide direction to the process of evaluation and also serve as the criteria for adopting a particular technique of evaluation. 

Here are some principles:

1. Determining and clarifying what is to be evaluated
2. Selecting evaluation techniques in terms of the purpose to be served
3. Combining a variety of evaluation techniques for comprehensive evaluation.
4. Knowing the strengths and limitations of various evaluation techniques to be able to use a particular evaluation device meaningfully and effectively.
5. Evaluation is a means to and end, not and end in itself.

Group discussion:

We think that 1, 3 and 5 are very important principles to develop.But, number 1 is the most relevant than all principles above. 

Determining and clarifying what is to be evaluated (1) gave us a guide of which objectives will be accomplish by students. This principle provide us a direction to the process of evaluation and to know what techniques we are going to use.

CLASS ACTIVITY 8:

TYPES OF ASSESSMENT

according to type:    

• test
• observation
• report

according to moment:

• initial
• formative
• summative

according to agent:

• heteroevaluation
• coevaluation
• selfevaluation

SUMMARY/REFLECTION

Selfevaluation is the kind of evaluation in which each individual or actor involved in the educational process makes their own judgements and draws their own conclusions about the experience they have had. 

Heteroevaluation happens when more than one individual actor involved in the educational process shares and discusses their judgements and conclusions. Often this kind of evaluation takes place in a small group setting. While individual judgments may change as a result interpersonal evaluation, arriving to a consensus is not the aim. The purpose is simply to share and discuss those individual evaluations.

Coevaluation has an added dimension. It is not simply an interpersonal evaluation in which the number of actors involved is bigger. Since the group as such is part of the context and very often an important source of learning in non-formal education, group evaluation specifically at aspects and dimensions of the learning process that can be observed and judged from a group point of view, including for example the atmosphere, the co-operation among participants, the contribution of the group to the learning and the group process. It should be noted however that this is not its exclusive function.

Initial evaluation is the evaluation done at the very beginning. Before we start our project, whether it is a youth exchange or a training course, it is a good idea to take some time out to check our aims, objectives and methodologies. Some questions you might want to ask yourself at this stage could be:

• Are the objectives of the lesson plan in line with the general objective?
• Do the methods chosen serve the fulfilment of this aim?
• Does the programme cover everything we want to address? Is it realistic?
• Do the stucents have the necessary expertise and capacity to run this programme ?
• Do we need to call in some support?

The formative evaluation is our chance to check how things are going. As the name  implies, it takes place during your project. It may be an “ongoing evaluation”, such as daily reviews at the end of each day, or a whole set of methods that take place at the mid-point of the programme. 

Formative evaluation may prove to be extremely useful for the class, as it gives them the possibility of identifying potential problems or shortcomings as the programme progresses. Students may decide to make necessary changes in the syllabus, to tackle these challenges, or meet additional needs that the students may raise.

Once we complete our lesson plan, it is time for the final evaluation. Using a variety of methods, the students  and the teacher evaluate the whole process in light of the outcomes (i.e. fulfilment of objectives, learning achievements, organisational implications and impact in a wider social context) with a certain distance and perspective.

CLASS ACTIVITY 7:

EVALUATION, ASSESSMENT, MEASUREMENT

Evaluation

a series of activities that are designed to measure the effectiveness of the teaching-learning system as a whole

Assessment

the processes and instruments that are designed to measure the learner's achievement

Measurement

scores, notes, grades as a result of assessment