As an early years teacher I know the importance self-esteem plays in my classroom. Students need to feel safe and part of the learning community to take academic risks and celebrate their personal achievements. In my grade one classroom our motto is be the best you can be. As an intermediate special education teacher and tutor I know the importance that self-esteem can and continues to play in students’ lives and the evident need for assessment for learning plays in preparing for assessment of learning tasks. I’m always saying things live give it a go and what a smart mistake. I believe students do need to give it a go and that mistakes are smart; they are opportunities for learning. Mistakes show thinking, right or wrong; the student that is willing to give an answer, right or wrong, I can help be the best they can be.
Primary teachers are use to scaffolding concepts for their little learners and recognize that classroom talk or discourse is important. I know that a teacher’s observations are very important. Teachers are leaders of the curriculum in the classroom but they are also the adult and in many ways the parent in the room. The role of teacher has expanded and evolved and the curriculum that calls for skill and drill can appear outdated or archaic by today’s socio-standards. “Yesterdays education for tomorrow’s kids” (Pensky, 2005, pg. 62) seems ridiculous. In my early years classroom, teaching and learning depends greatly on two things: student self esteem and student engagement. Prensky noted that “All the students we teach have something in their lives that’s really engaging-something that they do and that they are good at, something that has an engaging, creative component to it” (2005, pg. 62). I would add, students we teach need to feel safe and valued in a classroom if they are to reach their full potential and share their literacies while learning new ones.
I ask, why change classroom assessment? I answer, because society changes, and the learning and motivation of our students change. Assessment needs to be looked at differently so that all students benefit, differentiated learning can assist in bringing about quality in classroom assessment. As teachers what have we looked at in the past?
1. Credentials
2. Manufacturing the lie: 75.8% is better than 75.4%
3. Socio-economic background: the doctor’s kids
4. Automatic reactions
Learning needs to be the higher priority and learning happens when those things we believe to be true are challenged with new evidence. Adults seem to find this harder than children.
I ask if assessment is so important, why were we not taught how to do this effectively in our teacher education programmes? I feel cheated in some ways. I really should have had a solid grasp of assessment as a graduate from an education programme! “Lacking specific training, [we] rely heavily on the assessments offered by the publisher of their textbooks or instructional material… [we] treat assessments as evaluation devices to administer when instructional activities are completed and to use primarily for assigning students’ grades” (Guskey, 2003, p. 6). It shouldn’t be this way at all! Assessment should be a large component of teacher training programmes and teachers should feel that assessment is valuable because it improves student learning, it services the students needs. Assessment should be meaningful, on going, and achievable. Do we, as teachers, really need to include the “gotcha” question on a test if our goal is to watch our students succeed? NO. There is no need for test secrecy. Students should know what is expected of them clearly so that they can meet their full potential.
We, teachers, have perpetuated the lie. Changing assessment and assessment practices is a huge shift. High quality education for all is about excellence and equity; we should not comprise this! We need to come away from excellence and equity as a privilege as it is not fair to our students. When did we move from teacher as coach to teacher as judge? “Assessment can be a vital component in our efforts to improve education. But as long as we use them only as a means to rank schools and students, we will miss their most powerful benefits” (Guskey, 2003, p. 11). There is much, I still need to learn. I recognize that education cannot stay static. Just as society continues to evolve, so must our education system for administrators, teachers and students alike. There is much to gain if we support a change in assessment practices, think of the possibilities!
Work cited:
Guskey, T. R. (2003) How classroom assessments improve learning. Eductional Leadership, 60(5), 6-11.
http://pdonline.ascd.org/pd_online/teachbehave2/el200302_guskey.html
Prensky, M. (2005). “Engage me or enrage me”: What today’s learners demand. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(5), 60, 62, 64. http//www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0553.pdf
