EDU 510 The Future of Assessment K-12 assessment

K-12 assessment

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According to Paloma & Banta (1999) assessment refers to the grading a particular student’s performance in a given test or assignment. It can also mean the process of evaluating an education system to ascertain the quality of a certain problem and its contribution to learning of students.

Excellent performance of disabled students should become a key goal of k-12 assessment. Not so long ago children with disabilities were often excluded from large-scale assessments and teachers could receive incentives for doing just that but with the reforms introduced more and more disabled children are getting an opportunity to participate and compete with their ‘able’ counterparts. But as Mesick (1989) puts it the goal of k-12 assessment should not be limited to inclusion of disabled of in assessment should focus on delivering high quality performance and that can have a great impact on the education of students .To do this there will be need to have a clear determination to know if disabled students have the capacity to take part in regular assessment and if not what alternative arrangements can be made for them.

Another change would be to increase the involvement of students in their own learning for instance by setting targets to achieve. Teachers should not merely teach to test as it has often been the case but they should ensure that students are being prepared and given the education necessary for future careers. This will also help to ensure that teachers provide feedback in what areas they think students should put in more efforts. This will be a significant shift from the obsession with ranking students.

Rubrics is one assessment tool that is widely used. It is a printed set of criteria that set out to show the performance of a student in a given paper and to provide feedback. A well-developed rubric is a good assessment tool because it outlines specific curriculum outcomes expected from a given task, it shows the criteria used to assess performance of students and it also indicates what excellent performance looks like so that it become clear to all. It is also clear and it provides challenges for students to do much more to try and reach their potential.

Reference

Messick, S. (1989). Validity. In R. L. Linn (Ed.), Educational measurement, (3rd ed). New York: American Council on Education/Macmillan

Palomba, C., & Banta, T. (1999). Assessment Essentials: Planning, Implementing, and Improving Assessment in Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass