Children's Assessmenst

Children and Assessments

Assessment, is defined as the process of identifying, gathering and interpreting information about students’ learning; the purpose being centered around providing information on student achievement and progress and set the direction for ongoing teaching and learning(Crow, 2007, para. 2).

We have learned from our research that all aspects of a child’s life, affect whether they will experience success in school. In order for assessments to be fair and accurate, teachers must evaluate children on individuality. Some children will not reveal what they know in certain settings. Because individuality is so important, standardized assessment results can be unreliable; however, those results will determine, whether a child is promoted to the next grade level, and will also affect the compensation for teachers and administrators(Edutopia Staff, 2012, para. 3).

Authentic assessments, in my opinion are the most accurate. The teacher design the assessment, in an attempt the measure what the students have learned, based on contents taught. Examples of authentic assessments would include observation, open-ended questions, portfolios, journals, rubrics and teacher-created tests. What make the authentic assessment the most reliable, is the opportunities the teacher have, to meet the needs of each child, by presenting material in a way that each particular student would grasp. Unlike authentic assessments, standardized exams are given based on grade levels. Each student, is given the exact same exam, and given a certain amount of time, to complete it. Individuality is not taken into consideration. Some students suffer with test anxiety issues. Some need more time to process information presented; standardized test do not provide any that. Children in their natural classroom environment, will exhibit what they know and what they don’t.   

In the past, children in east Africa were being assessed based on western assessments and children’s milestones were judged, based on experiences they did not have. In an article I read” Refining the milestones: assessing child development in Africa”, children who did not have any experiences with forks and knives, were being asked to use them to prepare a bowl of cereal, they were also assessed on bicycle riding, but had not had the experiences because of their culture. Researchers from the College of Medicine in Blantyre, Malawi, designed a more culturally relevant developmental assessment tool: “Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool” (MDAT)”; used to assess children in rural Africa (Wellcome Trust, 2010, para. 5). I am grateful for all of the research, done of the development of children; taking environment and culture into consideration.

Children should be assessed in the most natural way possible. The teacher would definitely, get more accurate results; and let’s not forget the child’s culture!!!!!

 

References

Crow, S. (2007). Assessment in primary schools. Curriculum Support for Primary Teachers, 12(2). Retrieved from http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/consistent_teacher/index.htm>

Edutopia Staff. (2012). What Ae Some Types of Assessments? Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/assessment-guide-description

Wellcome Trust. (2010). Refining the milestones: assessing child development in Africa. Retrieved from http://wellcometrust.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/refining-the-milestones-assessing-child-development-in-africa/

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