The photo album analogy was helpful to me as there is no way to understand student growth if the teacher only sporadically examines the work of the student. Instead, by constantly observing the work of the student as well as the student’s learning style, the teacher may gain a more complete image of who the student is as a learner. While testing remains important in the classroom, relying on a single test to evaluate the work of a student will not give the teacher a full concept of how the student is progressing. When a school uses testing as the primary means of understanding student progress, many important aspects of learning are missed. There is a tendency to focus primarily on the standardized test topics than upon a well rounded curriculum, and many important methods of learning are missed as students are only asked to show their linguistic and logical intelligences. In addition, I thought it was valuable that the chapter discussed the various testing styles used for each educational goal. For example, an art evaluation should never be done through a test, but instead by allowing the student to create artwork or find another way to show their proficiency.
I enjoyed that the chapter discussed the difference between knowledge and understanding. While this should be a rather simple distinction, it is nice to have the lines drawn and an explanation given. Understanding can be seen as shades of gray, as there is a large scale of how students understand a concept. In addition, there are many types of understand, thus assessing a student’s level of understanding of a concept can be difficult. When students are capable of explaining as well as applying skills, it can be understood that they understand the concept.
No comments:
Post a Comment