EDUC 510 Module 2 Blog

1. Was anything regarding this week's content that was surprising or new for you?  Explain.

This week was a nice learning experience, in my undergrad we discussed assessments but it was definitely something that was glossed over. I learned and finally solidified the difference between formative and summative assessment. Dr. Torres had a wonderful way of remembering the difference in her lectures by formative being FOR (during) the learning and summative being OF (after) the learning.  I was also surprised to learn that you can intend your assessment to be formative but then it is instead used as summative. I think this would happen when you are teaching a concept and when checking in with your students, you realize and have the proof, they are proficient and ready to move on. 

2.  What makes creating assessments so challenging?

There are two big challenges for me, the first, is the making sure my assessments are both reliable and valid. The second is making sure I ask the right type of questions in the right way. I could easily steer the students into a direction that doesn't measure or gather data related to the learning target. I also don't want to create assessments that are surface level and only pertain to the remember category of Bloom's Taxonomy. My goal is to gain more skill and proficiency at creating assessments that really illustrate my student's performance and intended learning objective. 

3.  Because quality assessments are so important-- what are the strategies you could implement to make creating the more manageable?

Keep my previously designed assessments. Every assessment will need to be adjusted depending on the overall class and years that go by but having previous templates would help me create assessments more proficiently. I will also be able to see what is right and wrong in my assessments from previous examples. I also think having a document with questions typed a certain way would help. That way when it comes to creating the assessments I can copy and paste and tweek my wording where needed. 

EDUC 510 Module 1 Blog

1.  In your experience, how does assessment determine what a student learns and doesn't learn? 

 In my experience, assessments have been very surface level. They have only assessed that I know the stages in the water cycle but nothing further past that. For instance, how the water cycle pertains to stuff outside of academics. If a part of the water cycle doesn't happen, how detrimental it can be to corps and farmers. During my time as a recreation therapist, we used assessments to help guide us in what our patients were interested in. The issue was that it was so narrow that it didn't have options that interested my clients and it also didn't allow my clients to branch out and try new things; leaving certain aspects or hobbies unlearned. In my experience, the assessments we used tried to put everyone in a box that was unrealistic for what I was trying to teach my clients. 

2.  How does assessment relate to what is valued and what is not valued?  

Assessments are the driving focus of what is valued and not valued in education. If a concept is worth really knowing than some form of summative assessment will be conducted. If you can't connect how it relates to the students or create a reliable and valid assessment, it probably doesn't have to be taught. As stated above, knowing or what the stages of the water cycle was valuable, where as, the why or how behind it is considered invaluable. 

3.  In your classroom, what do you imagine is worth assessing and not worth assessing? 

In my perfect classroom, I imagine assessing the whys and hows of concepts. For instance, how is the four seasons important to our everyday living (ie: the snow from winter gives us water for summertime, it helps replenish our water sources, etc.) I am more interested in the connections of how things relate from our academics to our everyday world. Yes, its important to know the fundamentals such as color names and the stages of the water cycle but it is not worth assessing only the what of a concept. I would also like to incorporate more affective and psychmotor domains into my assessments. I personally believe that including those two aspects will help make the class content more relevant and meaningful to the students.