KYLENELSON

Being in the classroom for the past two years, its been easy to fall in to the, quiz, quiz, chapter test routine of a textbook. However the after looking at assessment in the IB, it’s very evident that the routine may of us fall in to does not do justice for our students.

 

Assessment should be used as part of the learning process, not just to give a grade and continue with content. Assessment should guide students in their quest for understanding the world around then, as well as the content, but showing them where they stand in their current understanding of those topics. In the IB, this is done by relating the assessment tasks back to the statement of inquiry. By following a test book, I am guilty of giving an assessment based on the grammar and cultural topics of the chapter, which ends up being a factual, regurgitation of knowledge, rather than a showing of understanding and application of the knowledge and skills.

 

After thinking more about assessment, I definitely don’t not feel that the assessments my department currently gives accurately show what students are capable of. Also, I feel that we need to do a better job of using assessment to drive our instruction in a positive way and not in penalizing way (meaning using assessment only for grades).