Artifact 6.3 Understanding Assessment-New Philosophy

Maria Sideri
EDU 316 Curriculum Development in Inclusive Elementary Classrooms
Spring 2011
Assessment

Understanding and Discovering New Aspects of Assessment


Black and William’s (2001) article, Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment as well as Richard J. Stiggins’s (2002) article Assessment Crisis: The Absence Of Assessment For Learning have undoubtedly changed my understanding of assessment. Prior to reading these articles, I thought assessment was simply just the tests or quizzes that teachers give to their students in order to verify the students have learned what was taught. The only other type of assessment that I knew about prior to reading these articles were standardized testing such as the MCAS, and national testing programs. I always believed that although there are many problems with testing, standardized testing in particular, I believed that that was the only way that the states could see if their students were understanding the knowledge that is being taught to them throughout the school year. These highly raised standards I understood was very difficult for some students to complete, but I did not know that there might be other ways that assessment can be down. This other way is assessment for learning in which Black, William, and Stiggin discussed.
Before reading Assessment Crisis: The Absence of Assessment For Learning, I always believed that standardized testing was necessary for students. After reading this article I realized that there is a terrible flaw in the vision of standardized testing. Stiggin discusses the effects of standardized testing on students and delineates that, “…when some students are confronted with the tougher challenge of high-stakes testing, they do redouble their efforts, and they do learn more than they would have without the added incentive” (Stiggin, 2002, p. 4). Although this is true, Stiggin also makes the crucial point that, “Another huge segment of our student population, when confronted with an even tougher challenge than the one that it has already been failing at, will not redouble its efforts-a point that most people are missing. These students will see both the new high standards and the demand for higher test scores as unattainable for them, and they will give up in hopelessness” (Stiggin, 2002, p. 4). Therefore, the problem of standardized testing became obvious to me; policy makers seem unable to understand or accommodate to the difference between students in their ability to do well or not do well with assessment. Stiggin suggests that in order for policy makers to shorter the gap between these two types of students, they do not need to keep “raising the bar” which only widens the gap. Instead, policy makers need to create assessments for learning which help students learn more.
Black and William also delineate the importance of creating assessments that will not ineffectively test the students, but rather help them to learn more. They suggested that, “Tests and homework exercised can be an invaluable guide to learning, but the exercises must be clear and relevant to learning aims. The feedback on them should give each pupil guidance on how to improve, and each must be given opportunity and help to work at the improvement” (Black & William, 2001, p. 8). This is an aspect of assessment that I believe is incredibly important. Not only should teachers grade their students, but they should make sure to point out the areas of strengths and weaknesses of the students so they can improve their own work, which increases self motivation.
Overall, by reading these articles my understanding of assessment change for the better. I now understand that assessment is only valuable if it helps the students to learn more. Therefore, assessments as well as standardized testing should be changed to be considered formative assessment, or assessment that is for learning, not to test learning. In my future classroom I will plan to definitely include formative assessment that benefits all students that will instill a sense of confidence that comes as a result of completing assessment that actually helps to teach them more.