Evaluating for learning, the aim of standardized tests?

When I think of the sense of assessing students, I think of the reasons why we do it. Not only now that I have a little of experience in teaching but also as a student. As I analyze different perspectives I can notice two general aims when we talk about aims of assessment.

Assessing for promoting more effective learning:  this is the kind of assessment we should implement in every single classroom. It is known that assessment is part of the teaching process; but teaching requires a process of making mistakes, correcting and receiving input that sometimes can be kind of feedback that students need. Also, as students get ready to be assessed, they are revising the input they had received and practicing what they are supposed to practice to then, be able to show their acquired knowledge and be willing to receive feedback to reach a better level of proficiency.

Assessing for political implications: Here, we take into account standardized tests where everyone takes a test which will determine if a student is accepted or not in a specific institution such as a public university, or whether the institution where (s)he was “prepared” reached the standards that determine if that learner is proficient in a certain domain.

Both types of assessment measure knowledge on behalf of the students, but do both of them ensure an effective learning? I dare say, no. Only in case of the first one I mentioned, learning is promoted due to its formative nature when the teacher has the chance to give feedback.

In the second one, where standardized tests give the opportunities for students to enjoy a privilege, this promotion of learning is not visible. According to Brown (2003), there exists a thorny situation inside the classrooms because of these tests. Teaching and learning are driven by them and other important criteria of the curriculum are left aside. This promotes only extrinsic motivation in teachers and students, who only worry about performing well in a test that in the end, will not lead to further learning.

It is virtually inevitable to skip standardized tests in educational field, so we as teachers should constantly reflect on the importance of formative assessment and teach students that the learning process is what is valuable for them in reality. Of course we all should keep the balance so as for us not to over nor underestimate any of the two kinds of examinations. 

THE RIGOROUS PROCEDURE OF DESIGNING AND SCORING TESTS

 When reflecting on the ways we as teachers have assessed students, we might remember our first experiences as assessors and the tasks we try to think about to fulfil the institution's policies about evaluation where we worked. It is so probable that we had made a lot of mistakes just because we thought that creating a test was only about thinking of the topics seen in class and asking students about them in order to get grades. Of course, that is one of the aims but then, when  time went by and we were gaining more experience we started to realize it was not that easy. I don't know if it only has happened to me, at least I can reflect on my own practices.

 As we observe guidelines explained by Genesee and Upshur we can confirm that the process of test design could be as rigurous as class preparation. In these few paragraphs, I'm gonna focus on just two aspects in the process of assembling and scoring tests.

 First of all, I want to talk about reliability in scoring. Casting my mind back, I remember that I used to work in place where testing was only required to do at the end of a term. No more tests results were taken into account to mesure students' performance. The course lasted 3 months and 8 units were included in such test. By coining what the authors introduced previously have stated, I can explain my reflection and questioning: Did just one test mesure what the students really knew? The fact of taking one test that mesured almost all what they have "learned", could influence their pshychological state? Could just one test assess 8 units at the same time? Those are the questions I asked myself and these are the answers I have now: It is undoubtedly necassary not to mesure students' performance with the results of a single test. It is likely to show inappropriate grades because aspects such as emotional states can influence their outcomes. Moreover, the amount of topics demands different opportunities of assessment. It is worth mentioning that these assessment practices have a relevant impact on the kind of teaching inside a classroom, an issue that is further this discussion.

The other aspect I want to mention is the importance of having analytical scoring procedures to assess open-ended questions. They are very useful and every place in charge of language teaching should have one to facilitate the scoring process and give it more reliability.

Again, I remember my practices and only in few times I have count on a list with specific criteria to measure Ss production. I have realized of its relevance and I have started to use it. It gives more rigurousity to my assessment.

We can see now how much effort a test could need though here we analized only two aspects. As long as time goes by and we acquire more knowledge on assessment, it is a must to start reflecting and making changes to improve our teaching-learning-assessment practices.

Journals, questionnaires, and interviews: Types of needs analysis?

The importance of conducting a needs analysis is known by many teachers and student-teachers, who are interested in getting to meet the specific necessities of different classroom environments. When they are applied, teaching and learning processes are expected to change, improve, and go to the rightest direction for them to be effective. Through the following paragraphs, we will see some reasons why journals, questionnaires, and interviews can be taken as types of needs analysis that deliver more benefits than just getting answers though a survey.

Most of the times, when we think about needs analysis we relate the idea to a survey only, but as far as we examine the benefits of other alternatives such as journals and interviews, we realize that they are not just all about that. They are a deeper manner to conduct what is known by us as needs analysis because they are very focused on students’ perceptions, interests, and desires in educational settings.

Journals: as mentioned before, their main concern is to get to know students perceptions. Journals are written conversations between teachers and students in a relatively informal way where they talk about a classroom-related topic or another one that allows the teacher to get closer to the students’ thoughts. These pieces of writing receive feedback from the teacher and that leads to continue a conversation where more and more perceptions are delivered. Of course, the information influences                                                future teaching practices.

So far, we can see that in a general sense they are needs analyses but now, let us see other further benefits they bring to us as teachers:

• They permit to train the students in the mechanics of writing as a genuine communication.
• They increase closer communication with teachers and they provide more reliable data on their real needs.
• They lead to an individualized teaching strategy on writing, where the teacher can give more specific feedback and observe progress.
• They enhance students’ involvement in learning.

Questionnaires and interviews: their main purpose is to ask questions about a variety of issues that surround language teaching; there are many designs to get effective students’ answers to be able to actually guide our practice and make relevant decisions. As journals, in a general sense, they share the aims of a needs analysis but let us observe some further advantages:

• In the case of interviews with students, not only do they provide answers to questions but also they lend themselves to train in the mechanics of speaking.
• They promote the enhancement of fluency.
• They allow the teachers to have a clearer panorama of the students’ progress on speaking skills.

After having realized of the benefits that journals and interviews offer, that apart from analyzing needs they promote the improvement of language skills, I think they are powerful tools inside our classrooms. I really would like to implement them and learn to adapt them to specific contexts. What about you? Can you see the negative part? I’m looking forward to knowing your minds.   

Seventh week assignment: Systematizing observations in the classroom

As the other alternatives in assessment (portfolios, conferences, self- and peer- assessments, journals) observations are different options to assess students’ performance and aspects of teaching practice. Most people could say that they are not as affective as theory suggests because they do not give a grade or because they require a lot of time and that makes it unreliable. It is true that it is not a summative assessment but we should keep in mind that the most important characteristic of those alternatives is their formative nature. For that reason, we as teachers should take them as an opportunity to make changes in the classroom, to improve or help more our students.

In this little space, I will focus on a few ways to systematize observations so as to show that they can be reliable as far as they have clear objectives and specific instruments to collect information.

Anecdotal records: if you are not an experienced teacher in terms of carrying out observations, you can start by using this type of observations. You can use an informal notebook for you to write an aspect you consider important as soon as you observe it.

They are more useful for internal purposes; teacher can evaluate and tailor instruction for their learners.

Checklists: compared with the previous example, these types have predesigned categories for recording your observations. They require precise and specific categories and criteria for assessing students and instructional activities. On them, teachers select among the criteria the one(s) that correspond to the observations. In next example, the teacher is observing a linguistic aspect during a class and there are some options (s)he chooses and writes a line according to the observed performance:

Rating scales: the difference with the formerly mentioned is that this one provides more categories in which observations can be clasified. Generally, they use numbers to locate the students according to their performance. Here is an example of an observation of oral production where different scores are given:

These formats will systematize our observations in a way that they can give us appropriate information for the learning and teaching processes. 

Another key point is that before carrying out observations, we must be clear about the objectives of our observation. They must be organized according to our instructional plans, content, materials, equipment, and activities. 

After that, organized information will be useful to prepare effective reports.