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.