So in my very personal opinion it is obvious why students are not being as proficiency as expected, they are not being well assessed. And it is because teachers are not being trained enough. Most of us started to work one or two years ago and we did not know anything about how to evaluate student's performance but our own experience. I bet that most of us did the same that was done to us with our students. Now after all we have read and done, what do you think you did right? What did you do wrong? Is there any way you can repair it? If there is, do it right away because remember that we, as teachers, can even enhance or destroy student's love for whatever they are learning.
Remember that not everything is about written texts and that in English especially we have up to five skills to include on a test. So try to be as reliable as you can on your assessment and make sure you get to know each case, I know it is time consuming and sometimes get on your nerves but I am pretty sure that when you see the results they will be just awesome!
You have said it 'only two universities that offer assessment courses' ..This is when we must start thinking upon which criteria our educational system is making sure that teachers are being well trained. On the other hand, as future teachers we should take these courses more seriously for not to become one of those teachers that we criticize and guarantee that learners are being tested by meand of integrating all the language skills.
ResponderEliminarHi Karolita, I really agree with you, few months ago we had no idea about how to assess our students, and I've found Assessment class very useful as well as meaningful, from now on our assessment will be better, for sure. And as you said, it is unfear that only few universities offer assessment courses when there are a lot of Licenciaturas programs, what will be the future of our education based on this statistics?
ResponderEliminarHi Carolita,
ResponderEliminarI completely agree with you. I' as many of us, began to work as a teacher like 2 years ago and of course at that time I didn't have the knoledge to assess my students in the best possible way. Eventhough I think I did a good job. But know that we have learned the things and the strategies that we can use at the moment of assess our students in each task, test, or activity I think that we have to put them to work. We need to use them to improve our performance as teacher and also to give students a really good evaluation of what they've done. Sometimes it is hard work and time consuming but we need to do it and it is important for our students.
I agree with Carolina since the fact we have just two universities that offer assessment courses it is really a matter to worry. Thus, two obvious questions came up; the first one is, how are Colombian teachers assessing their students? and Who is assessing them?. Most people could think that it is not important even some teachers could think so, but we cannot judge them becuase maybe they neither receive the correct training to be a real teacher. However, it cannot be an excuse to skip it. What is in our hands is our Colombian people, our future professionals. So, teachers must take it seriously. I also think as Carolina because our tests should be reliable maybe they are time-consuming, but this our profession and nobody forces us to be a teacher, so let's do well our job. :)
ResponderEliminarCarolina: Your proposal is very interesting. However, are you sure they are time-consuming? Don't get me wrong. What I want to say is that there are teachers capable of adapting alternative assessment techniques to large classes. They find a practical way to implement them on a daily basis. What I'd like to have here is an open forum for people to design a practical adaptation of all those ways of non-traditional assessment such as diaries or portfolios, among others, to apply in our classrooms. Any proposals?
ResponderEliminarHello all
ResponderEliminarThanks for reading my blog.
And since most of us agree I consider we should share some tips and things we do to in order to solve the time consuming problem, as Jonathan said there are many things we can do, for example I take advantage of the time in class and while some are doing an activity I'm giving feedback to others. This works pretty well with adults but with kids this may not be a good idea. Do you have one? Feel free to tell :)
Thanks again for your comments