Linking pedagogy and assesment practices - Research Paper Example

Various skills represent a school’s collective learning goals that are not specifically taught in class but are very important in a learning process. According to Chun (2010), these skills can be grouped together in what is called higher order thinking skills. This is because these skills enhance the thinking ability of students. One of the ways in which they improve learning is by enabling students to be able to consider multiple perspectives of a problem or a situation. Another way in which they influence learning is through enabling students to examine evidences and evaluate claims. These skills also enhance the students’ ability to arrive at judgments and decisions as well as giving them the ability to transfer skills to novel situations (Chun, 2010). The best way to assess these skills is by use of Collegiate Learning Assessments. According to Pike (2011), Collegiate Learning Assessment requires students to produce artifacts that are evaluated using a set of scoring rubrics. These assessments make use of performance tasks in making the students to produce these artifacts. This assessment also involves creating of rubrics that assist in assigning scores to the artifacts produced by students and helps the students in the production of these artifacts. So far, this method has been proven effective in testing and developing these skills by the learning institutions that have already started to practice it. In evaluating the effectiveness of Collegiate Learning Assessment, we have to consider what it has achieved and what it has failed to achieve. According to Chun (2010), the performance tasks used in these assessment are of high quality since a good level of expertise and time investment are employed while building each one of them. This ensures that they are in line with the set assessment goals and that they are shaped to deriver sufficient information about the skills they assess. Hence, this aspect can make us consider Collegiate Learning Assessment as very effective. Another aspect of Collegiate Learning assessment that makes it very effective is the high standards of reliability and validity that its performance tasks are required to meet (Chun, 2010). This makes the assessment to provide performance data which could otherwise have been impossible using other assessment mechanisms. Moreover, according to Chun (2010), the performance tasks are based on the learning outcomes that students are expected to attain. Thus, this assessment reveals these learning outcomes based on the students artifacts rather than test scores. Artifacts are more effective due to their ability to incorporate high level thinking as compared to test scores and hence they make this assessment to be more effective. The process of making Collegiate Learning Assessment tests involves numerous rounds of field testing, revision and calibration (Chun, 2010). This makes this assessment perfectly suited to deliver the best outcome possible for the skills assessed. It also helped in ensuring that this assessment is tailored towards ensuring that the artifacts can measure the level if the skills assessed are in the most accurate way possible. This has actually made this kind of assessment to be very effective in the achieving of assessment goals. However, the responses obtained from Collegiate Learning Assessments are long and complex with a wide range of possible scores (Hardison & Vilamovska, 2009). This makes them very complicated to administer and very difficult to analyze. As a result, they require a high degree of skills and proficiency among the assessors. It also requires high degree of commitment and dedication of both the assessors and the students. If it lacks this it can fail to achieve the objectives intended thus becoming ineffective. Another way in which pedagogical practice can be aligned with assessment tools is through involving students in the designing of those assessment tools. Some of the tools in which students can be involved in their designing are the assessment questions or artifacts, rubrics or projects. This can make sure that the students learning interests are reflected in the assessment tools. As a result, this would make the assessment tools able to measure the level of skills of those students more effectively. This could also enhance the ability of those assessment tools to provide more valid and reliable performance data. No child left behind As a professional educator in the making, I do not agree with the No Child Left Behind approach to assessment. This is because the approach which is reinforced by the No Child Left Behind Act of the federal government has failed to achieve positive impact despite its good intentions. This approach in its attempt to promote educational accountability has changed the focus of teacher from teaching to testing. The approach holds the schools directly responsible for the proper education of the children. This is a recommendable thing but what it has resulted to is undesirable. Most schools have shifted their focus from actual education to preparing the students for tests thus teaching the students to pass the tests rather than teaching them to learn necessary skills. It is therefore not a good approach and should thus be either scrapped of or modified to make it not to result to such negative impacts (Botzakis, 2004). Another approach to assessment that can be used instead of No Child Left Behind approach and checking in approach is the Systems Approach. According to Wilson & Bertenthal (2011), this approach emphasizes on understanding how assessment works and ways in which various components of an assessment interacts. In this approach, the assessor has to understand all the components of an assessment like the students cognitive behavior, measuring the behavior and interpreting the results. They should also understand how these and other components interact while designing an assessment. Moreover, they should understand how these components interacts with the learning environments as well as the teaching tactics employed. This approach is better than the Check in approach in that it is more systematic and provides guidelines on which competencies can be measured. Moreover, it helps the assessor in providing knowledge in which to base his assessment. It also provides a mean of interpreting the assessment data more comprehensively to ensure that all the students reap equal benefits from the assessment process. This approach is therefore more recommendable as compared to the Check in approach. As compared to No Child Left Behind approach, this one is a learning based approach to assessment. In this approach, the outcome of the assessment bears equal weight with all other aspects of the assessment process. Thus, it does not make an education institution or a teacher to focus more on assessment results. Instead, it makes them more focused on how to use the result to show the level of students learning and to promote future learning. References Botzakis, S. (2004). No Child Left Behind? To Whom Are We Accountable? Retrieved from http://teqjournal.org/backvols/2004/31_4/botzakis.pdf. Chun, M. (2010). Taking Teaching to (Performance) Task: Linking Pedagogical and Assessment Practices. Retrieved from http://www.collegiatelearningassessment.org/files/TakingTeachingToTask2.pdf. Hardison, C. M., & Vilamovska, A. M. (2009). The Collegiate Learning Assessment: Setting Standards for Performance at a College of University. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Pike, G. R. (2011). Assessing the Generic Outcomes of College: Selections from Assessment Measures. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Wilson, M. R., & Bertenthal, M. W. (2011). Systems for State Science Assessment. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Read More