Making judgements about the quality of performance
Determining a possible course of action
Purpose
1. Diagnosing pupil problems
2. Judging academic learning and progress
3. Providing feedback and incentives
4. Planning and conducting instruction
5. Establishing classroom equilibrium
6. Placement of students
Types (1) - Sizing up
all teachers use it to set up and maintain an effective classroom
Types (2) - Instructional - used to plan and deliver instruction
What will be taught
How and when it will be taught
What materials will be used
How a lesson is progressing
What changes in planned activities
Types (3) - Official
Grading, grouping, assessing progress, interpreting test results, conferencing
with parents, identifying pupils for special needs placement, and making
promotion recommendations
Teachers rarely make formal affective assessments - make informally
Behavior domains (3)
Psychomotor
Physical and manipulative behaviors
Particularly important with very young or some special needs students
Interpersonal?
Methods:
paper&pencil and observation
Paper and pencil - supply and selection
Observation- process or product
Some are formal
Some informal
Supplementary - previous teachers, school staff, and parents
Standardized or not standardized.
Individually or group administered.
Quality
Regardless of the purpose of assessment or the method used to obtain assessment
information, the quality of the decisions made from the assessment information
will depend primarily on the validity and reliability of the information.
Quality
Validity is the degree to which the assessment information actually measures
the targeted characteristic.
Reliability pertains to the consistency of the assessment information gathered.
"Valid assessment is always reliable (consistent), but reliable assessment
is not always valid."
Ethical responsibility
Long term effects on students
Short term effects
Make decisions using as valid and reliable information as possible
Ethical standards
Teachers should be expected and morally bound to provide defensible assessment
evidence to support classroom decisions and actions.
Conclusions
In thinking about teachers it is useful to conceive of members of the occupation
as engaged in a craft; we can then compare conditions affecting the practice
of this craft with those of other crafts. All craftsmen must adjust and
readjust their actions in line with hoped for outcomes; they must monitor
their steps and make corrections as they proceed. Monitoring of this kind
is particularly important when the outcome is remote in time; mistaken
assessments can deflect movement towards the goal and prove extremely costly
when the proof comes in.
"A teacher must listen to student answers, watch other students for signs
of comprehension or confusion, formulate the next question, and scan the
class for possible misbehavior. At the same time, the teacher must attend
to the pace of the discussion, the sequence of selecting students to answer,
the relevance and quality of the answers, and the logical development of
the content. When the class is divided into small groups, the number of
simultaneous events increases, and the teacher must monitor and regulate
several different activities at once." (Doyle, 1986 p.384).
The quote suggests that in addition to being an actor continuously reading
the audience, the teachers also behaves like a circus ringmaster, keeping
a variety of activities going on simultaneously.