Foundations of Education and Instructional Assessment/History of Education/Teacher Education

The Assessment Connection: How have assessment practices changed in the US overtime? By Rachel Hayes

Table of Contents 1. Sidebar 2. What are assessment practices? 3. History 4. Social Needs 5. Types of Assessment Practices 6. Analyzing Assessments 7. Multiple Choices 8. Resources

Sidebar

“Learning is driven by what teachers and pupils do in classrooms. Teachers have to manage complicated and demanding situations, channeling the personal, emotional, and social pressures of a group of 30 or more youngsters in order to help them learn immediately and become better learners in the future. Standards can be raised only if teachers can tackle this task more effectively” (Black, P. & Wiliam, D.).

Over the year’s educators, universities, and politicians have been trying to overcome and challenge the ways to better the minds of our future. How this entire issue is solved will eventually have an outcome on our minds of the future.

What are assessment practices?

Actual assessments are “the process of observing learning, describing, collecting, recording, scoring and interpreting information about a students or one’s own learning” (New Horizon, 1995). Assessment creates an overall agenda of the learning process. These assessments typically allow students to be placed in the correct class, allowing in the future graduation and promotion. Assessment equals an evaluation in the school system or the teaching process. Standardized Tests are teats that are given to students at many levels of the education system to allow the knowledge of the student to be tested in a consistent manner.

History

Overtime assessments have changed due to the differences in teaching and principal styles along with the school systems development with technology and knowledge as the years have pasted. Assessment practices date all the way back to the Han dynasty in China but the first true acknowledgement of the “tests” in the United States was during the World War I, in the early 19 hundreds (Wikipedia). The ETS, the Educational Testing Service made these test become a part of our cultural. In 1948 the ETS began to develop the assessment test for all grades (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc). Some years later the Elementary Secondary Education Act was devloped with was in 1965. This act made it to where the assessment teast were to brought into the public schools. Once 2001 approached another act was formed, the No Child Left Behind Act which helps to further the knowledge and commitment to the test given to the students in the public schools (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc). Overall the reason for not only the tests but for the acts is to improve the performance within the school system by the students and teachers.

According to Jay Mathews, a Washington Post Staff Writer, in the 5th and 4th century B.C. we “cared more about finding the path to higher knowledge than producing a correct response.” The question is why are we so focused on the assessment practices given in the school systems. Jay Mathews, also states that critics believe that the standardized test are taking away from schools and students “creative clash” He also speeds in his article about how the technology of today’s era is causing the schools systems to “pick up the pace” (Mathews). The systems have fallen behind so are the students the once having to take the fault of the schools systems lack of keeping up with technology?

Social Need

The purpose of assessment tests is to allow the students and the educational system to become one. Through the years education has been the balance between the development of our future and the futures of the students at hand. Without these standardized tests as a whole society what will the future bring? With having these tests in the system we (as a nation) are making sure that the people of our future are becoming educated to the best of their ability. On the flip side we are putting a lot of stress and unneeded pressure on the students of the future making them learn in a very limited classroom environment. These tests are only allowing the teachers to teach what's needed to be taught and limiting them to detail of a personal level in their own classrooms.

Types of Assessment Practices

There are two types of standardized tests the Norm-referenced and Criterion-referenced. “Norm referenced tests measure performance relative to all other students taking the same test. Criterion referenced tests measure factual knowledge of a defined body of material” (Work & Woman). Examples of Assessment Practices 1. MSA – Maryland School 2. SOL – Virginia Standard’s of Learning 3. D.C. CAS – D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System

Analyzing Assessments

According to two authors, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, of an article in the Phi Delta Kappa International, The Professional Associate of Education claims there are three major concerns revolving around assessment practices. 1. The first issue is “effective learning.” Paul and Dylan explain these test are causing superficial learning by teachers not sharing their own personal methods of teaching through their own schools along with basing their tendencies on the emphasis on quantity and presentation of work and not the quality of learning by the students. 2. The second issue if “negative impact.” Teachers are overemphasize the grading and do not give enough attention to the learning of the material. Paul and Dylan believe the approach used by comparing students to one another is teaching and causing low-achieving students and creating a lack of ability in the students mind.

3. The final issue that Paul and Dylan focus on in their article is the “managerial role of assessment.” They feel the feedback from the teachers to the students is only serving a social and managerial purpose, which causes flaws in the learning function. One key element these two researches focus on is that it has come to seem teachers are not focusing on the analysis of the records given by the students previous teachers along with the teachers making future predicts to what these students will do on these explains causing question to the methods they are bring into the classroom and how well the students are being taught and what exactly they are learning. 

These two authors, By Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, also claim there are four effective ways to implement these assessment test to better support the students and the teachers. The four steps to implementing these tests are learning from development, Dissemination, Reducing obstacles, and research. Learning from developing would allow teachers to apply what they have learned about teaching throughout school and other teachers in their own classrooms, which in turn would allow them to have their own way of teaching instead of follow an outline of a test. Teach the material needed but in your own style. Dissemination would offer, encourage and explain to schools the tools and information needed to make all the efforts needed to help these students to develop into strong leaders of our future. Reducing obstacles and research are pretty much explanatory in the sense of making a classroom a place to learn and develop along with knowing how and what to teach by doing the research at hand.

Multiple Choices

1. Another name for assessment practices is

           a.	The Learning Method
           b.	Developmental Learning
           c.	Standardized Tests
           d.	All of the Above   

2. The first Assessment Practice know of was during

           a.	World War I
           b.	World War II
           c.	Vietnam War
           d.	None of the Above  

3. According to the article, during what year was the No Child Left Behind Act formed

           a.	1965
           b.	1948
           c.	2002
           d.	2001  

4. At what level are these practices being given to students, according to the article

           a.	All grades 
           b.	College
           c.	Elementary
           d.	High School 

5. According to Jay Mathews, an author for the Washington Post what are these practices taking away from the classroom and the teaching methods of these teachers

           a.	Confidence
           b.	The ability to grow
           c.	Learning Techniques
           d.	The Creative Clash 

Answers 1. C 2. A 3. D 4. A 5. D

Resources

1. Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (2007). Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment. Accessed January 30, 2008 from Phi Delta Kappa International website at http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/kbla9810.htm

2. Mathews, J. (2006). Just Whose Idea Was All This Testing? The Washington Post. Accessed January 30, 2008 from http://www.washingtonpost.com

3. New Horizons for Learning. (1995). Assessment Terminology: A Glossary of Useful Terms. Retrieved January 28, 2008 from http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/assess/terminology.htm

4. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (2007). Standardized Tests. Retrieved February 1, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org

5. Work & Woman. (2002). Standardized Test in Schools. Retrieved February 1, 2008 from http://www.worknwoman.com