Assessments

Creating a rubric for the short story alternative assessment was by far one of the most enlightening experiences in my teaching journey.  The assessment that I created, inspired by Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery, required students to either defend or critique a tradition in today's society.  I made a variety of project mediums available to my students, ranging from paintings and comics to persuasive essays and poetry.

I've created assessment templates like this before for other education courses, but I was never responsible for demonstrating how I was going to actually assess student work.  So, when I sat down to create the rubric for "The Lottery" assessment, I was faced with more questions than I expected.

To be fair to myself, I have heard all of these things before.  Yet, actually creating the rubric for an assessment made me consider these things:

•  Assessments must reflect learning objectives.  What do I want my students to learn?  This is what I need to assess.  Thus, assessments become a measure of not only student learning but also teacher effectiveness.  If I am successful in teaching, then my students' work will reflect that.
• Students need structure.  I cannot expect students to simply complete what I have in mind.  They need specific direction.  For example, in order to get the maximum amount of points for their tradition statements, the rubric details that the students must turn in a statement with all three of the required componenets on time.
• Assessments must be measurable.  Assessments that are measurable clearly demonstrate student understanding of a topic in an organized manner.  Assessments can then be used to maintain teacher accountability as well as to chart student progress, which is helpful to students, parents, and administration. 

In Science Methods, we discussed making sure that assessments allow for further student growth and learning.  Therefore, assessments cannot just require students to repeat what they have learned in the lesson but should encourage them to make new connections and observations.  This maximizes learning time in the classroom and ensures that students really understand the lesson.

Another idea that I love from Science Methods is giving students a quiz immediately after engaging in the lesson.  Dr. Shane modeled this by having us rotate around three stations with an outline of what we need to know for the quiz.  He emphasized that his intention was not to trick us but to ensure that we have learned the details that he wanted us to pick up on.  There was less emphasis on memorizing the material.  Instead, I focused on making sure that I understood the material that he highlighted for us.

Students do not often fully understand why they are being assessed.  They understand that in order to earn an "A" or to move on to the next grade, they must do well on assessments.  Traditionally, "doing well" requires hours of re-reading and memorization.  If this is all that students do, then they are not really learning anything.  I think student understanding of assessments need to change.  Instead of measuring how much information they can cram into their heads, students should understand that assessments exist so that they can demonstrate what they can do with what they have been learning.

And if assessments are not measuring what students can do, then they need to change so that they do.

This brings up the disparity between objective and authentic assessments.  While there is room for both in the English classroom, I prefer authentic assessments.

Authentic assessments provide further opportunity for students to explore the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy: applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.  Thus, authentic assessments allow students to take ownership of their education.  Students are able to directly and tangibly interact with the class's materials, which  leads to a deeper learning experience.

Objective assesments are also helpful in the classroom.  Sometimes it is necessary to make sure that students understand basic concepts that are best measured through objective assessments.  Just because they do not engage the top tiers of Bloom's Taxonomy does not mean that they are not valuable.  However, an English classroom - which is supposed to engage students in critical thought - cannot be reduced to multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank.  That is an insult to student intelligence and creativity.

Final Example: My 10th grade English teacher, who is my absolute favorite teacher, displayed a great blend of objective and authentic assessments while teaching To Kill A Mockingbird.  After certain readings, he would give quizzes that ensured that we completed the readings while directing and measuring our comprehension of important details within the text.  He supplemented these objective quizzes with a variety of authentic writing pieces, including character studies and narratives.