Teacher and Student Assessment

Assessment in Our Ideal School:
In this school, assessment of students will occur on a relational and professional level. Students will be involved in what physical work is assessed and have an understanding of what and how their teachers assess them professionally. Relationships, being a strong and main focus of the educational setup of this school, will play an important role. Trust and respect will ideally be an integral part of the teacher/student relationship. While it will be necessary to assess work done by students in certain subjects, students will be aware that the learning process of each individual is valued, and not just the outcome of a test or a project. Teachers will also assess themselves and welcome the student’s voice and opinions of how a teacher is educating.
With the basis of communication, formative assessment will begin with the teacher and expand within the student population. A study done on assessment in the classroom (see below, link 1) suggests that students may learn more from how teachers assess their work than what they are actually being taught. This argument is valid in the sense that educators need to be extremely aware of their classrooms. As the study implies, “What we assess, how we assess, and how we communicate the results send a clear message to students about what is worth learning, how it should be learned, and how well we expect them to perform.” Therefore, following theories presented in articles by Mary Jane Drummond and Paul Black, our educators will start with constant reflection of learning and teaching. This can develop in many different ways and with many different tools: observations, note-taking, peer learning, colleague researching, etc. In Mary Jane Drummond’s chapter Learning from Jason, Drummond argues that assessment must start with the process of thinking, not just the results (230). For Drummond “[student’s] learning [must be] the prime concern and central focus of their teachers’ attention.” In a sense, by having a continued and deep interest in the process of learning for our students, it may not be necessary to assess the end results. Paul Black and other researchers highlight formative assessment as a central theme throughout Working Inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom. In this sense, assessment is used for “promoting” students’ learning, and not measuring their success. Formative assessment also encompasses the idea of being a teacher-researcher and using learning assessments to understand and constantly improve and adapt how we are teaching to meet the “learning needs.”
Ultimately, our ideal school system of assessment is grounded in trust and a desire to learn. Teachers start with a formative assessment system focusing on researching their approach to educating in the classroom and uncovering ways of learning themselves. In addition to this it is important that the students participate in the assessment process from the beginning. Instead of feeling like being assessed is a test of their knowledge and capability, the classroom and the curriculum can be the start of students’ and teachers’ desire to learn together, educate each other, and sustain a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world as they leave this “ideal school.”

Link 1: http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/TOEFL_Institutional_Testing_Program/ELLM2002.pdf
Link 2: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/assess-1.htm