Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning

Assessment and evaluations are a huge emphasis that is placed on today's teachers, no matter the school they work at. We are constantly told to collect and take assessment, to evaluate our students on what they know and what they are capable of. Even as student teachers, assessment, and evaluation is something that we are told from the start to include and collect from our classrooms. But with all this emphasis on the evaluation the question can be asked, is there such thing as too much assessment?

It is in my humble opinion that there is such thing as too much assessment. Assessment should be used to challenge students and make them think. It shouldn't quiz students on what is the most information they can memorize by the test. I believe that, as similarly stated in the article, assessment should evaluate students on what they know how to do; "what is more important is their ability to apply that knowledge to texts-- the "knowing how" aspect of learning literature" (225). There is a huge difference between knowing about and knowing how. Too much assessment starts to blur the line between knowing about and knowing how. Similarly, too much assessment does not give teachers an accurate read on their student's ability. If teachers have too much assessment, they might not be able to distinguish between what students know and can do and when students are just not having good days. If we, as educators, spread out assessment we can see what students are able to do over time and not just at the moment. We can see the good and bad days as what they are and not judge students for them.

I really appreciated the section of this article that talked about the huge tests and how teachers find themselves teaching to the test. The part that I found most interesting and accurate was the chunk that talked about how these large school tests can lead to "making faulty generalizations about students and/or labeling students based on single test scores... that can adversely affect their self-image as readers or writers" (238). I think this quote is an essential thing to remember as educators, that just because a student didn't do too well on a test doesn't mean they aren't capable of succeeding.