Assessment

So of all the reading so far I feel this should be required reading for all teachers. I don't really want to rant but I will say that there is no blueprint anywhere when you are in teacher education programs to help with assessment and how to design a test. This chapter had a lot of great information and would be a nice place for teachers to start designing a test and determining what is included. One of the most valuable nuggets of wisdom was how to determine what mastery looks like and how to properly measure if mastery has been met. I don't think most teachers consider just how important it is to be able to answer this question. I do think that assessments would be much improved if teachers took time to take these things into consideration when they are creating a test.

One thing I thought was interesting was that 'trick' questions are not desirable. Man, I wish some of my former teachers would have read and heeded this advice. I understand the idea that in reality things aren't usually cut and dry, real life is messy. Determining if a student can transfer the knowledge is important in assessing learning, but if you are giving misinformation and compound questions are you really checking to see how well the learner performs the skill or are you doing something else entirely.

After every test is administered it should be evaluated, especially items that were missed by most of the learners. There are many reasons why a majority of students might miss a particular question, so it is imperative to find out what the reason(s) was to make necessary changes.

Overall making sure your assessment accurately assess how well a learner can perform a skill is the key to designing a good assessment. There are a lot of factors, its a process, and items can't be skipped or overlooked in order to be truly effective. Even the best planned assessments may have unforeseen consequences that need to be changed.