Assessment Tools at Classroom Level - Article Example

Assessment Tools at room Level Assessment Tools at room Level Assessment for Response to Intervention (RTI) is the process that includes planning for progress monitoring. This involves classroom-based assessment where teachers assess students on how they respond to classroom instructions. Some of the students who require additional assistance make specific progress without any acute intervention of special education placement. The paper will majorly deal with the assessment tool on how students fail. Several reasons exist as to the reason children fail in schools. These reasons vary from individual to group stages. John Holt states, “Children primarily fail because of fear, boredom, and confusion.” Most children lack the idea of what they are reading that calls upon their teachers to take this blame. Students need guidance to light up their way in studies. Most them need a closer attendance to enable them follow and catch up with other students. Without clear and close follow-up, students end up losing focus and technically fail to achieve better grades. Guidance is the key factor in a student’s success (Holt, 1964, 46). Lack or encouragement lowers students’ morale in studying. Students’ minds are like toys, where we must be treating them with great concern and dignity. Students with better grades should be encouraged and motivated to work harder. However, if focus and concern are up on bright student’s only, average students feel demoralized making them drop and fail more in their studies. Average students need more encouragement than brighter students to enable them feel on the same level like the brighter students (Holt, 1964, 98). The idea of negligence fills students’ minds and heart, which makes them feel out of place. Students have the mentality of choice and preference. Lower students tend to think that brighter students are preferred over them, which might not be the case. However, this rules their minds and instead of reading, they end up brushing shoulders with brighter students. Such students end up failing in their studies (Garcia, & Garcia, 1989, 404). Most students fear to fail. Sometimes it is good to fear failure. However, fear is one factor that enhances failure. Fear reigns student’s courage making him/her unable to undertake his/her studies. Students who fail exams take fear as the reason to fail their studies, but some bright students take fear to pass their studies. Brighter students tend to believe that they will have a bad future if they fail. They then end up reading hard to achieve better grades. However, other students act differently on fear. Some of them end up not studying making them fail their exams (Holt, 1964, 101). John Holt states that boredom is another factor that affects students’ failure in schools. Boredom blocks and locks a child’s inner motivation of learning and reduces his love for exploring new ideas. Children wish to explore and identify new ideas of their interests. However, when a child becomes part of the school system, both the parents and the school ruin children’s education unknowingly. The school system demands children to participate in dull and repetitive activities, which denies them a chance to explore their capabilities. Such demands deprive the student to learn peacefully and get better grades (Holt, 1964, 104). The school system works on embracing better grades and rewarding only the best. However, children fight to get these rewards other than cultivating their ideas and explore their minds. Students end up cramming foolishly and read for exam purposes only. Students are then denied the chance to express freely their capabilities in what they feel and think. Such chances should be given to students to enable them identify their talents apart from working for their grades. School should not only emphasize on better grades but also consider students’ capabilities and talents. Ignoring talents and capabilities amongst students in a school defines failure in students (Holt, 1964, 98). Confusion spices up student’s failure. Teachers provide different information from parents. The idea of either taking in what the teachers teach or what their parents taught them makes their mind confused. Before understanding what they need to do, time finds them off guard, and they fail in their studies. Teachers treat students different from their parents. The example of a student taught by his parents curiosity is a positive deed faces mockery and confusion from teachers and students when trying to ask a question. Such students feel demoralized and happen to lose concentration in class, which makes them fail in their students (Holt, 1964, 231). Real learning affects students’ capability of getting better grades. Real learning does not only involve understanding the basics of reading, writing, and the arithmetic ideas, but it involves encouragement on idea development and career building. Most of the time, students never apply information they are taught because the information seems to be out-dated by the time they finish schools. They never find a chance of applying the knowledge they learn into real life. Some students feel demoralized when such situations arise which affect them in their studies (Holt, 1964, 88). The current school system introduces fear in the students’ capabilities. The system works to harm more young individuals than to help them achieve their needs. Such issues make students identify defence mechanisms or strategies, making them act as if they do not understand so that they will not be recognized. Such issues define failure among students in schools. Students fear humiliation, to be laughed at and mocked. John Holt gives a conclusion that there is a big difference between what children know and what they appear to know. Instead of learning, children tend to perform or how to survive through avoiding teacher’s questions with the least embarrassment in consideration. Internal factors are not the only sources to failure but also external factors (Holt, 1964, 188). The first learning target in the school is time keeping. Time keeping is an essential component in a school setup. Time keeping affects both the teachers and students in general. However, time keeping has an effect on the performance of a student. Some students come late at school and happen to be late for classes. They tend to miss some important information making them fail in their exams. Late coming defines unrealistic progression in a student’s performance at school. However, there are certain teachers who tend to be late for classes. Such character makes students lose hopes in teachers since teachers should behave as role models to students, but if teachers lead by being late, then students will follow the trait. Time keeping is a crucial aspect since it affects students not because students attend classes late because teachers attend classes late. The second learning target is discipline. Some students happen to have bad disciplinary characters that affect their grades. Such target is crucial since it makes students know that discipline a must to successes. However, students must also understand that discipline does not only better their grades but also mould them to fit in the society as individuals with good morals. Bad character maintains bad shape in school as the school may end up suspending bad character students. While away, student tend to miss a lot from their course work making them fail in their studies. The last learning target is absenteeism. Absenteeism is an issue that is on the rise in schools. Students opt to stay away from school without any valid reason. Absenteeism makes students lose vital information in their coursework. If students lack full information, they tend to have no answers during examinations making them fail. Most students who are absent at school tend to have lower grades than those present at school. Absenteeism is an important sector and must be in consideration when trying to raise students’ grades. Students are greatly affected, and most teachers care less when it comes to absent students. Alex, Valentino, Diana, and Elmer are four students in the school having difficulties in their studies. The mean score of the four students is 35%. The mean score of the other part of the class is 82%. The comparison between the two groups shows how much one group is excelling while the other group is failing. The four students have been experiencing a series of problems. Teachers and other students have been humiliating the four students by recognizing them as class failures. However, this has not the major reasons as to why they have been failing in their studies. The algebraic expression= the mean score of the four students is (x/4) * 100=35% The mean score is 0.014 points. The mean score of the remaining class is (x/40) *100=82% The mean score is 0.328 points. Their mean scores differ by 0.314 points. The four students have been missing school on several occasions. The register shows that the four students have missed school for about twenty-five days of the whole term. Within the twenty-five days, the class covered two full topics. The four students evidently missed information on the two topics, which was set in their exams. The students had no other choice than to fail their exams because of lack of information. However, the teachers never got concerned on why these students were absent for almost twenty-five days of the term. Teachers would have taken the reasons into consideration and give the four students several private lessons to cover up what they had missed (Batshaw, Pellegrino, &Roizen, 2007, 404). The four students are reportedly victims of not doing homework. As other students strive to do their homework and hand in on time, the four students never did their homework or they submitted late. Because of this, teachers condemn them without asking on the reasons as to why they never did their homework. For example, Velma is a victim of domestic violence. His dad is drunkard who disturbs her when she wants to do her homework. Velma lacks ample time to carry out her studies while at home, but teachers never noticed. Teachers should address such issues to help students better their grades (Clark, 1983, 231). Performance task is the diagnostic assessment tool to use during the classroom assessment. Using this tool, students gain the chance to identify, create, produce, and present ideas basing on the real world. Performance task brings out the essence of what children have learnt and how they may apply it in real life situations. Ideally, performance task identifies student’s capability and talent to develop on it. Students gain courage and rage to fix real world problems with the course line information (Angelo & Cross, 1993, 58). Performance task is a summative type of assessment tool because it gives assessment basing on the development of students’ ideas with time. Students show what they feel and what they create when they have that chance. They collectively participate and interact to help each other on their ideas. Performance task is an important and the best assessment tool because it builds courage among students. It also enhances togetherness and promotes good morals such as helping one another. In the process, it builds one’s character, and it brings out the capabilities of a student apart from class work. Students aspire to have a chance of mingling with other students, know and understand each other and discuss on class work. Performance task creates such platform, and that is why I chose it. The performance platform is upon different conditions. Gender, age, level of study, and class performance are they key conditions that made up the performance task as an assessment tool. At first, all the students were put into one group and later divided into different groups depending on the conditions to give different results and assert the efficiency of the assessment tool. However, all students participated in the assessment, and the results were amazing. Some students tried to figure out why they need to speak fluent English. When it came to whether students should do their homework, some said no while others said yes. The four students presented their results as no to homework (Hall, & Hall, 2003, 555). The reason as to why the four students said no to homework is their background. The four students have no time to work on their homework. Most parents tend to make their children indulge in involving and tiresome jobs instead of assisting them to do their homework. The four students represent such faulty actions by their parents. Students should get guidelines to their parents reminding them that they are supposed to do their homework. When parents understand this fact, students will start doing their homework and increase their grades. The performance task tool gives students a chance to express their ideas and explore them. From this assessment tool, students can feel at home since they are at par with other students. However, this tool ignores the aspect of brighter students and less bright students. Brighter students feel associated with failures and may influence them to drop in their studies. References Angelo, T., & Cross, K. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Batshaw, M., Pellegrino, L., &Roizen, N. (2007).Children with disabilities. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Pub. Clark, R. (1983). Family life and school achievement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Garcia, I., & Garcia, P. (1989).Testing for failure: Why children fail in school and life.Teacher Education Quarterly, 85--91. Hall, P., & Hall, N. (2003).Educating oppositional and defiant children. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Holt, J. (1964). How children fail. New York: Pitman. Appendix 1 assessment rubric topic Total marks description Marks awarded Mathematical assessment 20 Students clear calculate the given sums. 18-20 marks dictation 15 Students writes the correct spellings of the dictated words 13-15 marks Sports 10 Students clearly performs on the field 8-10 marks Critical thinking 30 Students shows clear focus and answers the asked questions clearly 28-30 marks Appendix 2 Teachers rubric topic Total marks description Marks awraded Discussion of students targeted 20 points Student thoroughly describes the four students and their learning difficulties 19-20 points Assessment tool or method 30 points A clear, thorough description of the assessment tool or method is described 28-30 points Rubric 30 points A thorough, clear rubric is included 28-30 points Conditions 20 points Student describes exceptionally well the conditions under which the assessment was administered 19-20 points How learners performed and analysis 20 points A complete description and analysis of how learners performed is provided 19-20 points Further instruction 20 points Student provides clear explanation on any further instruction learning targets may need based on assessment results 19-20 points Strengths and weaknesses of assessment 20 points Strengths and weaknesses of assessment are clearly described 19-20 points Research 20 points Student uses credible and reliable research in the area of assessment to support the assignment 19-20 points Spelling, grammar, and APA style 20 points Assignment is free of grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors. Citations and reference list are properly formatted in APA style 19-20 points Read More