Evaluating students’ performance is one of the foundations of the learning process. There are several arguments highlighting its importance in education. First of all, assessment is critical for finding out whether learners understand educators’ instructions and determining the extent to which they follow them. Secondly, it serves as a motivation tool because I believe that students will demonstrate more interest in learning if they know that their outcomes will be graded. Finally, evaluating student learning is the best way to conclude whether educational objectives are achieved, and standards are met.
One of the evaluation processes is formative evaluation. Its primary goal is to evaluate students’ learning performance with the purpose of assessing the effectiveness of current instructions and deciding whether additional instructions are needed (Slavin, 2015). This evaluation process is a combination of motivation, learning effectiveness, and learning efficiency (Rieber, 2008). It aims at detecting the gaps in educational outcomes and estimating success or failure in accomplishing objectives. Moreover, formative evaluation is beneficial for obtaining feedback.
I think that I might want to implement elements of the formative evaluation process in my lesson plans. I would like to add more quizzes to my practice. They might be either right after representing new materials to students or at the beginning of the next lessons. The rationale for choosing this constituent is the fact that it would be beneficial to find out whether the students were attentive during the class and how well they perceived new information. In addition to it, quizzes would be useful for determining whether educating techniques are effective because higher grades mean that the learners understand the educator.
Test Construction
The significance of test construction is close to that of evaluating students’ performance because it reflects the effectiveness and professionalism of an educator. There are numerous principles applied to constructing tests. First of all, assessments should be based on learning objectives and instructions, i.e., correspond with what students learned. Moreover, they should include those types of tasks, which are familiar to learners and recommended by instructions. In addition to it, tests should carry out their initial function – estimate the level of knowledge and motivate learners to improve as well as to detect the gaps in educational instructions. Finally, they should be interpreted accurately. It means that they should represent true accomplishments and problems with the aim of either adding more precise instructions or continuing following the existing ones (Slavin, 2015). These are the principles that I plan to use in my classroom. Moreover, I would like to include various types of tasks in my tests, from true-false and matching items to open questions because it is the only way to estimate the level of knowledge.
The evaluation process is intricate. Nowadays, schools are obliged to meet high standards of education. It means that the students take standardized tests, which are intended to estimate their performance. However, there is a problem with these tests because some teachers choose to pay more attention to obligatory subjects such as math or reading and focus on higher results instead of factual ones (CBS, 2007). In my classroom, I will not give preference to classes included in federal programs ignoring others because this practice distorts facts and does not point to existing problems. I believe that it is paramount to guarantee that tests correspond with instructions, especially time frames because it is the only way to estimate performance.
References
CBS. (2007). Notebook: Standardized Test [Video file]. Web.
Rieber, L. (2008). Introduction to instructional design: Formative evaluation [Video file]. Web.
Slavin, R. E. (2015). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.