Student Assessment - Assignment Example

They also fail to measure the need for student growth which is needed to plan future instruction or lecture strategies (Tsagari). This has called for re-examining the traditional or conventional approach to testing qualities, hence a movement of alternative testing (Rachmnn 2005). Wiggins (1998) and Darling-Hammond, Ancess and Falk (1995) also pointed out the problem of deep understanding with conventional testing, emphasizing that deep understanding is robust learning which can be applied to different situations.

The criticism pointed out by Wiggins and Darling-Hammond is that conventional forms of testing such as exercises, quizzes and multiple choice questions are not capable of gauging this understanding among students (Williams 2007). Due to these criticisms Wiggins and Darling-Hammond, Ancess and Falk are in favor of performance assessment, in which instead of testing a student using multiple choice questions, they are to work on projects, conduct interviews, and presentations in order to demonstrate their understanding to the reviewers/teachers (Ross 2006) .

The basic premise of the vision of authentic achievement as proposed by Newmann, Secada, and Wehlage (1995) outlines the creation of more interesting yet challenging assessment tools for students. Teachers can encourage students to produce more intellectual work in the form of real world applications, and hence increase their performance.Although the basic assumption behind traditional and authentic assessment is common, which is to develop prolific citizens, the former approach tests the students on the possession of certain knowledge while the latter tests the students on the application of knowledge (Mueller 2008).

Another difference between the two approaches is that in the traditional approach knowledge is the curriculum determined prior to delivery while in the latter the task to be executed by the students is determined first, which would include the application of knowledge and the curriculum to enable the students to perform the task is determined later (Mueller 2008).Dictionary definition of rubric is "an authoritative rule, especially, a rule for conduct of a liturgical service" (Dictionary 2008).

Rubrics basically are assessment tools with the help of which the teacher can predefine what basis the paper or work will be judged on and how scoring will be done on the basis of the predefined criteria (ALTEC 2008). Hence, I agree with the statement that "using rubrics to code student work makes the expectations for success clear, and thereby solves a major problem of traditional assessment, namely, the mystery of marking/evaluating student performance" (Course Resource). If a student does not get a good grade despite knowing the rubrics, the teacher is to a point faultless because the student was informed about the assessment criteria and both students and teacher share with each other the requirements for a particular project (Holbrook 2001).

Assessments by rubrics are very detailed and give students a much more clear idea of what they are expected (Walvoord n.d.).It is also very helpful as an assessment tool as it is an ongoing review process where students can also self assess themselves on the basis of preset criteria before submitting their work (Andrade 2001).