Photo courtesy of Garuyo, August 12, 2010
Putting teachers in a classroom with a group of diverse students and asking them to educate those students is one big challenge. Asking those same students to learn all of the curriculum being taught in less than a year is something even more challenging. So, as an observer of such, you may ask yourself these questions, "How do the teachers know exactly what students are learning?" or "How does a teacher know what he/she is teaching is being taught in an effective way so that students are grasping the material?" Most importantly one may ask, "What about the students who know the material, but aren't good at test taking?" What helps to answer these types of questions is what is called performance assessment.
So, what is performance assessment? "Performance assessment...is a form of testing that requires students to perform a task rather than select an answer from a ready-made list." (Sweet, 1993) In regards to performance assessment for students, sometimes standardized tests are not always a good indicator of what a student has learned or of how effective a teacher may be. Some good types of performance evaluations involve homework, writing assignments, and group assignments. (Maloy, O'Loughlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014) Students tend to learn better when they are able to explore in their learning environment and use their creative abilities. Unlike answer taking tests, performanced based learning allows students to sometimes physically grasp the lesson, giving them that hands-on type of learning approach. This type of learning is known to be more effective for students.
Teachers are also required to receive performance assessments. A teacher's efforts inside the classroom don't always show up on the student's test scores. Neither can a job of a teacher be fairly evaluated by a list of written criterion. A principal or supervisor may evaluate a teacher based on a list of standards or student test performances, but these are not always good indicators of a teachers impact in the classroom. Performance assessment for teachers are similar to students because both stress the importance of hands on interaction as opposed to taken tests. (Maloy, O'Loughlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2014).
Tech Tool link:
Most teachers in the classrooms are using interactive whiteboards as a tool to provide lessons and materials to their students. These smart boards are like an extention of a computer. They are utilized in the classroom by teachers as a digital, modern-day blackboard. Projectiles produce images onto these big digital boards, and they act like a computer screen. You can manipulate images on the whiteboard by using your fingers or some other type of tool, just as you would use a mouse on a regular computer. Teachers find these digital boards to be very helpful for presenting group or classroom information, and students find that interactive whiteboards are very helpful tools which provide them with hands on, visual, and auditory learning all in one.
Summary & Connection
Teacher and student assessments are a big part of the educational word today. Much of the test taking philosophy is losing its power to performance assessment. Interactive assignments which push students creative juices are geared more towards student appraisals than is jotting down a answer in a fill in the blank paper, or some simple multiple choice test. Smart boards and other technological devices are helping students to participate in real-life learning lessons in which students will most likely engage themselves in the real world. With technology-based learning and more of a hands on approach to learning, students and teachers alike are involving themselves in the assessment process.
Resources
Sweet, D., (1993) Performance Assessment. Web. Consumer Guide. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/OR/consumerguides/perfasse.html
Maloy, R.W., O'Loughlin, R.E.V., Edwards, S.A., Woolf, B.P., (2014) Transforming Learning With New Technologies. Boston, Massachuetts. Pearson
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