by Yoon & Andy
1. Self-Evaluation: Self-Evaluation helps students pay closer attention to the standards and criteria. And it also helps them develop or internalize these habits of mind for themselves.
2. Peer Evaluation: Peer Evaluation might come in response to poems, essays students write, or presentations they give. Students listen to each other if given the chance; they appreciate being taken seriously, having the teacher recognize that they have something to say.
3. Adult Evaluation: Adult Evaluation is particularly important as part of the final portfolio at year’s end. Parents want to know what their kids have done; kids need to feel accountable for the quality – or lack of it –in their work.
4. Teacher Evaluation: Teacher’s role in evaluation depends on the assignment and what any particula student needs at that time. Some students merit all the vigor a teacher can bring to an assignment because they have invested an equal amount of time and energy into it.
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Self- and Peer-Assessments
Self- and Peer-Assessments develop the ablility of learners to monitor their own performance and to use the data gathered for adjustments and corrections by self or peer.
A conventional view might consider them to be an absurd reversal of the teaching-learning process. But the author shows a number of advantages of them: speed, direct involvement of students, the encouragement of autonomy, and increased motivation because of self-involvement in the process of learning.
This type of assessments can help advanced learners, especially adults. But it could be hard for beginner level learners. It could be less effective for them.
Scrutinizing the Alternatives: Maximizing Practicality and Reliability
Formal standardized tests are almost highly practical, reliable instruments. We, test designer and test-taker, can save time and money for accurate scoring.
Alternatives, such as portfolios, conferencing on work, or observations over time need considerable time and effort for both of them. But these offer greater washback, superior formative measures, and usually carry greater face validity because of their authenticity.
It is necessary to imply a responsibility to be rigid in determining objectives, response modes, and criteria for evalution and interpretation.
This is idealistic for assessments, but it is impractical for our situation. We have already fixed standardized test system, so we cannot change it easily in our own ways. At the beginning of the semester, English teachers discuss about criteria and types of assessments. 2-4 teachers teach the same grade students. If they have different opinion of assessment, we cannot use our own ways of assessment. All of the teachers of the same grade, should teach and evaluate the same contents.
In spite of these difficulties, we need to change our perception. We should transform inauthentic multiple-choice formats into more authentic with some creativity and effort. We can turn mutiple-choice test results into diagnostic feedback on needed improvement.
-Grace, Kitty, Kelly
Thank you for your explanation. It’s very helpful for me. But when I was young, sometimes I wonder why we got evaluated from other people in various ways. But as the time goes by, I have cone to know that evaluation is necessary to improve my ability through other people’s opinions. Evaluation can be one way of developing our things we have. In my case sometimes I reflect myself about what I have acted. i am not finished yet. Bit it’s time to go to lunch.
I’d like to make a comment on the classroom-based assessment above. I was glad to see if the writers were aware of the reality in school even though they were faced with sounding-great theories such as ways of alternative assessment. Introduction of self- and peer assessment, I believe, still could be a challeging enterprise to our current educational system. In tha sense, the alternative assessment like classroom-based assessment need to be implemented gradually with judicious policy decisions.
As long as educatiors want to change tests into assessement which is more pedagogically sound, they are urged to look at school settings and new testing policies like alternative assessment. Our effort to develop the methodologies of testing deserves time and energy, becasue the testing has a strong impact to all people concerned in school community: students, teachers, parents and the society.
Ideally, testing should be used as a method to judge student progress and find out what the common weak areas are for the class so we can make future lesson plans to strengthen those areas.
But, in the real world, students and parents simply look at test grades in terms of their future (or their child’s future). They want high grades and care less about whether or not the tests adequately assess communicative language skill.
But, as I mentioned in a comment on another post, if we have the flexibility to manipulate the weight of our grades, we can try to increase student motivation and help lower level students make better overall semester grades and make more parents happy.
The formal tests can count X% of the overall grade and other work like portfolios can count a higher %. The English department can create rubrics that place a greater emphasis on alternative assessments like portfolios and place less importance on test grades.
Also, textbooks like ours focus on the use of portfolios and other means of assessment, because the authors believe that by doing the work (by doing the process), students will not just earn a grade — they will slowly gain in their capacity to use the language.
And if those alternative activities do help students increase their communicative language skills, they should do better on the formal tests also.