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.
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