Summary Blog for Rachel M., Mary R, Allie W. & Susan W.

Allie W., Rachel M, Mary R. and Susan W’s Blog Summary

It seems as if everyone was in agreement with assessment. While Rachel felt it is important for children to be assessed in order to determine their progress and achievements in various areas, we all felt that a test at a given period of time was not the only was to accomplish accurate assessment. Allie stated that even as a student she thought it was unfair to spend so long learning something and only have one chance to prove her knowledge on the big test that came at the end of the unit. As a student, she would have much preferred the new form of assessment which combines both formal and informal techniques. Routman says it best: "Assessment must promote learning, not just measure it". According to Rachel, some students might do well on test but some students might need to express themselves differently. They might need to draw a picture, participate in a role play situation, work on a group project that has various roles and responsibilities, etc. Rachel also stated that, we cannot just teach students and have them spit out exactly what we want them to know. She is right as this is not how the real world works. It is great to know all of these facts for a Trival Pursuit game, but not in real life. One of Susan’s personal favorite ways to assess one of her classes (Introduction to Business) is when the students spend the better part of six weeks putting together a mini business plan for a restaurant. They work in groups of five or six and they have to decide roles and responsibilities. They are all held accountable to each other. They have to be creative, good with numbers, logical. Not everyone is good at all of these things. Therefore, they must work together and figure out who is good at what. They can look at previous models, but they still must come up with their own creation. When it comes time for assessment, they all have input as well me. Generally the kids are honest with who did what and who did a good job and who didn’t hold up their end of their responsibilities. Lastly, Mary spoke about the need for assessment to be meaningful. She felt that it might be easier to accomplish a joint assessment with older children than with the younger ones. There may certainly be truth to that.

Moving onto portfolios, everyone thought that was a good idea. Mary stated that how unrealistic is it to assess the child without seeing any of their work in front of me and basically only going on my most recent encounter with the child to write an assessment. She thought the idea of having an ongoing portfolio is new to her, but could be a wonderful idea as this could prove to act as the assessment because the student’s work would always be in front of her. Susan stated that the portfolios would give the students a chance to look back on their work themselves and see how far they have gotten. Allie stated that Routman loved the idea of portfolios so that the teachers can assess the students’ progress as the year went on. Routman discusses the idea of giving the child much of the responsibility and freedom of choice. As stated above in the restaurant project, if students are given some freedom to choose what they want to do and how they plan to accomplish it, generally they are more motivated. Rachel agrees that teachers should not be the only ones assessing students. For it to be of better value, students should share in this task.

Susan discussed the value of rubrics. Routman stated that “well-constructed rubrics are one way to help kids understand what is meant by quality and guide learners to assess and improve their work.” So it is another vehicle to help the students with self assessment – similar but different than a portfolio.

Mary feels that standards and standardized tests are here to stay. We all felt that we didn’t necessarily like the standardized tests. Allie agreed with Routman who felt that standardized tests are rarely supported by all the wonderful things that go on in a classroom such as self-assessment, observation, portfolios and open-ended responses. Rachel felt that testing was being shoved down our throats and the student’s throats without much benefit.

Lastly, Mary also liked the idea of joint conferences. She felt the idea of everyone joining in made it much more meaningful. This was discussed in the Ms. Rodriquez article. By utilizing the portfolios, Ms. Rodriquez’s students were able to use the portfolios to learn and to show the parents at the time of the conferences. They could discuss their work with the parents and show them their progress at the same time. The student’s use of the portfolios allowed the students to take joint accountability for the outcome.

Overall, this was a very valuable chapter and set of articles. It seemed to confirm some of what we already knew, however, gave some good new ideas such as the portfolios.