Reflective Writing #7

PIDP 3230 – Assignment 1: Reflection 1

Objective

For my first reflective writing assignment, I’ve chosen to reflect on one of the Seven Basic Assumptions of Classroom Assessment in Angelo and Cross’ Classroom Assessment Techniques (1993). My reflection will focus on Assumption 7: “By collaborating with colleagues and actively involving students in Classroom Assessment efforts, faculty (and students) enhance learning and personal satisfaction” (p. 11). This assumption caught my attention because I agree that faculty enjoy talking about classroom assessments but I’ve also never considered the position of assessments being a positive influence on student satisfaction.

Reflective

I chose this assumption because I want to delve deeper into the idea that assessments may have a positive impact on student satisfaction. This idea is important to me because in today’s competitive educational environment, I believe we are very much a service based industry. If we can deliver fantastic results with a high student satisfaction rating, we are surely to succeed as an institution.

Interpretive

Currently in my class lessons follow a certain pattern: we focus on gaining skills on a particular topic, do a quiz, review the subject matter, then an evaluative exam is given for that section. This process can take about a week per section. Throughout the early lessons on a topic, I do interactive examples on the board and have the class solve problems individually before solving as a group. By randomly poling the class on methodology and answers, I’ve felt I had a good grasp on classroom comprehension. Unfortunately when it came time to solve problems on their own, many students could not perform outside of the group setting. This is echoed by Vicki Davis’ experience in her article Fantastic, Fast Formative Assessment Tools (2017). Davis’ solution was to use the learning tool Socrative (MasteryConnect, 2017) to get real-time feedback on how her students were grasping concepts outside of the group dynamic. By using an App such as Socrative, solving problems can be seen as a bit of a game. This can make learning fun, and thus increase learner satisfaction.

Another challenge is students typically looking at quizzes as negative experiences. I endeavor to change their viewpoint. I use quizzes as an assessment tool to gauge student learning on a subject. This allows me to focus review lessons on whatever concepts the group are not grasping well.

Unfortunately the students feel as if they’re being evaluated and enter the quiz with a high degree of anxiety. According to the Professional Learning Board (2017), Formative Assessment using quizzes is a valuable tool, but should not be graded. They suggest marking the quizzes individually and leaving comments on where the students have gone wrong. In their opinion, this makes a “statement that the teacher cares more about [the students’] learning than their grade.”

Decisional

In the future I intend to follow Vicki Davis’ lead and try using Socrative during my interactive lessons. I also intend to issue more quizzes on a topic that are shorter in duration. The quizzes will be written format to assess synthesis of information. I will communicate with my students prior to the quiz that it is an assessment tool for me to help them learn better, and not to look at it as a test, but as a learning opportunity. I agree with the Professional Learning Board’s viewpoint and will not grade these quizzes. It is my hope that by approaching quizzes as a Formative Assessment tool rather than an evaluation tool, I can show the students that I care about their educational outcomes and thus, increase their satisfaction with the course.

References

Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Davis, V. (2017). Fantastic, Fast Formative Assessment Tools. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/5-fast-formative-assessment-tools-vicki-davis

MasteryConnect (2017). Socrative [Mobile Application Software]. Retrieved from

https://www.socrative.com

Professional Learning Board (2017). Types of Formative Assessments: Quizzes. Retrieved from

Types of Formative Assessments: Quizzes