CEP 813 Reflection

As I wrap up and reflect on my experience in CEP 813: Electronic Assessment, I realize how much my thinking around assessment has grown. At the start of this journey, I came up with three personal beliefs on assessment. These are my original beliefs:

1. Types: An assessment can be a lot of things. Formative assessments can be exit tickets, daily assignments, or even a show of hands. Plickers is a great way to formally assess students in a quick, anonymous way. Assessments can also take the form of an end of unit test, quiz, or project. These larger types of assessments are summative.
2. Purpose: Assessments are used to guide us teachers as to what our students know. They are key in determining how well we do at our craft. We can adjust our current teaching using data from formative assessments, and can change things for next year using data from summative assessments.
3. Perception: Some believe one needs to pass a test to show their knowledge or ability. I disagree because there are many ways students can demonstrate their learning. We cannot judge the value of a student, teacher, or school, based solely on that of a test, as there are many skills students gain that are not shown by a test.

My original beliefs are broad ideas on assessment. Throughout CEP 813, I have affirmed and grown my original thinking with every new unit of study. Here are some of the ways my thinking has progressed throughout each unit.

Unit 1: Foundations of Assessment and Evaluation

• Immediately with this first unit of CEP 813, my three beliefs were affirmed and expanded upon. I learned how standardized assessments were historically used to determine if someone had mastered a skill (skills used to increase the efficiency of factories) and were based on route memorization. This perception of the purpose of testing continues today in our schools (Shepard, 2000). It’s a perception that we need to work against because there are many ways to assess learning.
• I created my first draft of my Formative Assessment Design 1.0. This assessment is a real life example that I plan to use in my classroom. It demonstrates the purpose of what I believe assessments should be, a tool to help us teachers understand what our students understand.
• A broader range of assessment tools is necessary to capture important learning goals and processes and to more directly connect assessment to ongoing instruction (Shepard, 2000). I appreciate this way of thinking as it directly supports my view that we need to have a variety of assessment types in order to effectively determine what students understand.

Unit 2: Assessment-Driven Instructional Design

• A major theme of this unit was Backwards Design. This is a concept that I had learned about in my undergrad courses and one that I try to (not always successfully) implement within my classroom. This concept aligns with my beliefs on the purpose of assessment. In order for us teachers to really understand what our students know, our assessments must be created based on the standards and end learning results we want our students to master.
• A video by Rick Wormeli reinforced my thinking on the various types of assessments. He explained the differences between formative and summative assessments and how teachers spend a majority of their time on summmative assessments. It felt strange to me that this was true, however thinking of the perception of testing and how much time we spend on standardized tests throughout the school year, this makes sense to me.
• I created my Assessment Checklist 1.0, which supported my belief behind the purpose of what assessments are. Not only do we want assessments to show us what our students know, we want them to show us what our students understand. This is a change in my previous way of thinking, because I had used “know” and “understand” interchangeably. However, I’ve learned that just because a student “knows” something, doesn’t mean they actually understand it.

Unit 3: Feedback

• In this unit I was able to learn the importance of assessment feedback. I learned there are four levels to feedback: about the task, the processing of the task, self-regulation, and self as a person (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). I was quick to include two questions on my Assessment Checklist 2.0 that are feedback related. Before this unit, I had not considered how important feedback is in the assessment process. My view on the types of assessments has been expanded to include feedback.
• I further enhanced my Formative Assessment Design 2.0 by switching gears from a Google Form to incorporate FlipGrid as the online tool for this assessment. This assessment is shaping up to be a great example of what I view the purpose of an assessment to be. I still plan to use this assessment with my students in the fall and look forward to seeing how it informs me of student knowledge.
• Feedback is one way that we can change the perception of assessments in school. “It is the feedback information and interpretations from assessments, not the numbers or grades, that matter” (Hattie & Timperley, 2007, pg. 104). Feedback motivates students to be successful and I’m grateful to better understand the role and importance of feedback in assessments.

Unit 4: Formative Assessments in Digital Contexts

• I explored a large amount of electronic assessment tools in this unit. These tools allow for many types of assessments to be created and used effectively. Many of these tools support my beliefs regarding the purpose of assessment. Since these tools can create custom assessments, a teacher can create a large variety of assessments that support their desired learning goals and objectives.
• I was able to use my Assessment Checklist to review a formative assessment created by a peer. It was interesting to see what my peer’s perception of a good assessment looks like. I realized a lot of my views on assessments were aligned to that of my peer based on the types of questioning she used in her assessment.

Unit 5: Content Management Systems

• I reviewed the Course Management System (CMS) Google Classroom and saw how this CMS can allow for various types of assessments. Pretty much any electronic file can be uploaded and turned in as an assignment through Google Classroom. Students can also use the internal features, like discussion board questions, to participate in assessments. Parents and guardians can be sent a weekly summary of Google Classroom activity. This summary could help change the perception of assessments by showing families the variety of activities students partake in.
• Edmodo is a CMS that I used to create an assessment for the first time. This assessment creation is a good example of an assessment with purpose. Although the depth of this assessment is shallow, the assessment itself is rooted in my teaching standards. I plan to use this assessment with my students next year as an introduction to the topic of Reconstruction. Teachers can use Edmodo to create a variety of online assessments with custom multiple choice to short answer types of questions.

Unit 6: Digital Games and Assessments

• This was on of my favorite units in this course because I got to explore a core belief I have regarding assessments, that there are different types of effective assessments. I created my very own game based assessment using a program called Twine. This experience really reinforced all three of my assessment beliefs. The game’s purpose is closely tied to my teaching standards and it’s a great example of an assessment that can change the perception of what assessment should be. I’m extremely proud of this creation as it took me a lot of time to figure out how to use Twine, but I had a lot of fun!

Unit 7: Final Touches

• In this final unit, I was able to re-visit my Assessment Checklist to create version 4.0. This final version includes a sixth question, but one that I find very important. It gets at equity and bias in assessment creation. My initial perception was that standardize tests were fair to all groups of people. I disliked the over use of testing, but did not see them to put some people at a disadvantage. It was interesting to learn about the types of bias that appear in some tests and helpful to learn about how teachers can try to prevent unfairness during the assessment creation process.

Conclusion

• My initial beliefs on assessments have broadened to include even more viewpoints on what makes a good assessment. Each unit has allowed me to think and reflect on my ideas. Tools like the Assessment Checklist are helpful because I can use this to help determine if my future assessments are up to par or not. I look forward to continuing my learning on electronic assessment in the future!

References

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112.

Shepard, L. A. (2000). The Role of Assessment in a Learning Culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4–14.