WHAT DO YOU MEAN… ASSESSMENT?
Image source: assessment.uconn.edu
When I heard the word “assessment”, I immediately consulted Merriam Webster Dictionary and it defines that, “the act of making a judgment about something and an idea or opinion about something.” Well sounds easy to comprehend, isn’t it. But as I go over with the materials and resources, I was having hard time to picture out what is it to assess and how to assess in the field of education.
Exams, oral recitations, comprehensive exam and other forms of assessment are things that I encountered during elementary, high school, college and post graduate. These are things that are beyond student’s control. I can still remember during my elementary years to memorize 100 English vocabulary words and its spelling. There was a time, I had a fever and we had a long exam in History subject, fortunately, I passed the exam. During my college years, it was really tough because of schedules and duties in the hospital. I had my demonstration then quizzes after. How can I grasp all these methods of assessment in one day? Well, maybe, we are born to be superheroes.
As I go through the resources, I realized that assessing students is not as easy as pie. It takes time and proper process to complete its journey. For me it is like, before going to a certain place when I travel for the first time, I have to assess and gather information about that certain area such as what to do, what to eat, good places to visit. Through this research and information, I can have data to pinpoint my travel itinerary. When I arrived the place, I cannot also assure that everything in my data is correct so I have to visit and take more observation about the environment and see if it is safe or not. When I realized that everything is okay then I can have these travel recommended to my friends and will come back again soon. So based on my experienced in traveling, assessment requires- same thing in teaching. Teachers must gather information to plan or modify the teaching method and learning for individual, group and as a whole class. Teachers able to assess the strengths and weakness of each students and able to identify what kind of learning should each of them received.
For me assessment is all about process. It boils down how you plan carefully, execute and evaluate the student’s learning to be able to know that your assessment met your desire outcome. However, I believe that not only one assessment can constitute and measure one’s cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. It needs various assessment to conduct for the teacher to and confirm student’s level of learning and improvement.
Well, assessment its not only limited for student’s performance. I must disagree to some ideas that it is commonly for the student’s skills improvement, but, however this is mainly an assessment as well to the teachers’method and strategies that she ponders to her students. For me, it is directly related and interconnected the student’s achievement to the teacher’s skills. Therefore, it is important that assessing one is like assessing everyone.
ELAINE MEDILLO 