Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning

            Assessing students is one of the more difficult aspects of teaching that I am encountering. It’s hard to know if I am creating tests that are too easy or too difficult for students. With actually teaching, I can adapt my lesson to fit my student’s needs, but once I hand them their tests, that’s it. There is no adapting the test until after a group of students have had to experience it. Reading these articles were helpful in reminding me that the way I set up my tests will determine the success of my students taking them. I recently got to sit in with a group of English language arts teachers at my school who were participating in a mini-training session to score Smarter Balance practice tests that the students took earlier in the week. The questions the students had to answer were very specific but the grading rubric was vague. It seemed weird to me that the rubric didn’t match the questions being asked. It made attempting to grade the essays very difficult. The teachers disagreed on two thirds of the questions. It was challenging and it felt unfair to have to put the response up to a vote to get a grade. That should never be the case, especially on a state mandated test. That is why I appreciated the section about creating effective scoring rubrics in the handout “Assessing and Evaluating Students’ Learning.” I like the idea of setting a standard for what is exceptional work and what is unacceptable work. I think that if the people who created the state tests did that, then there wouldn’t have been so much ambiguity between what constitutes and perfect 3 and a 2. I think that using that strategy will also help me make my assessment goals and grading rubric more clear to students as