Module 2 Activity 3 - Assessment Context

I found the reading extremely insightful. One thing that I was surprised about was
how large the range of assessment strategies is that teachers are using across
the province. It was interesting to note the level of impact of various forces, such
as colleagues, students, and administration that teachers felt impacted their
choice of assessments. I learned that there is no appreciable difference between
the assessments used by teachers with varying degrees of teaching experience.

Another interesting part was how impactful giving zeros seems to be in high
school. It is important to note that only 23 per cent of teachers directly included a
mark for effort but that the overwhelming majority saw effort as being recognized
in how they used assignments to reflect a grade.

I also found it surprising that in only 86 % of the cases that teachers were having
difficulties with students did they contact their parents. I would have expected
that number to be a lot closer to 100%.

Some of the challenges I have experienced with classroom assessment have

been noteworthy. One such problem involved working at a school that had
adopted the New South Wales, Australia, curriculum, which was fine except the
schools admin. expected teachers to report on each indicator, rather than on
outcomes. That meant that there were roughly 70 indicators for Math alone each
unit that we needed to report on, so there was absolutely no possibility of being
thorough with the marks.

Also, I have worked at schools that insisted on giving multiple practice tests
before giving students standardized tests, such as the Cambridge Checkpoint
exam. One principal even insisted that we give the practice tests and exams
during the time that was allocated for our students to do their Exhibition, which is
a collaborative summative assessment over 6-10 weeks that allows students to
show their understanding of the IB Primary Years Program.

Another assessment issue that still bothers me when I think about it is the one
team leader for whom I worked that insisted all of the teachers on her team teach
spelling. It was a structured program that was useless for a lot of the kids, but
she also wanted us to have at least 10 spelling marks for each student as well. It
worked out that each test would have a weight of 0.5 per cent of the final mark,
or 5 per cent in total. The presence or absence of a spelling grade wasnt going
to affect any students grade much if at all.