The Impossible Dream?

The very purpose of assessment is manifested when the teachers or instructors are able to know with precision the previous understanding of their learners, identify how these students approach their learning, provide adequate opportunities to enhance/improve their learning process and how to use appropriately the information gathered in the formulation of the next instructional design and approach to teaching in accord with the learning goals and how students viewed meaningful learning activities.



To craft a formative assessment to be used in the entire Philippines for elementary, high school and even tertiary students are not only overwhelming but also impossible. To gauge the performance and skills of every student based on a uniform standard or criteria is difficult because such assessment can be unfair and bias. This is because the students, the infrastructure of their learning, the provision of instructional materials and the qualification of their teachers are mostly varied and diverse.



It is not wise to evaluate and compare the level of understanding of Juan of Quezon City about the “Laws of Motion” with that of Khalid of South Cotabato where the former has all the equipment and materials in conducting experiments on the subject matter while the latter does not have even a physics book to know about it. Even if the same students have the instructional materials and equipment, the result of their assessment cannot truly represent their learning if the quality and time spent by their teachers on them are not the same. Juan’s teacher has master’s degree in Science or Physics and teaches full time and only that subject while Khalid’s instructor has Science as minor subject and teaches Physics once a week and other subjects.



However, to formulate a formative assessment on a national scale is still possible if the assessment criteria are varied, in accord with the learners’ background and achievement,  and implement only to specific students and schools having the same qualifications as previously identified. For example, the assessment with the purpose of improving/enhancing the mathematical ability of grade 4 pupils in La Union can also be given to grade 4 students of Iloilo if both students have similar opportunities and level of instructions. In the same manner, English proficiency of Grade 8 students of Quezon City can be evaluated and compared with those students of Manila because they have similar learning/teaching backgrounds. In essence, a specific formative assessment should be given to students and schools possessing the same learning/teaching experiences so that the information collected will be fair and comparable.



Devising a national formative assessment is positively challenging if the education officials from the national government to the school are willing to participate in its planning, execution, monitoring and revision. But the greatest challenge would be seen in their preparedness and eagerness to come out with specific assessment tasks and address the outcomes of the assessment. This is because most programs of the Department of Education of the Philippines to enhance/improve basic education start and end with pilot studies. They are often short-term, short-lived and die with the shortage of funds. The very aims of the assessment programs are not well-defined. Even if they are, the implementation of corrective measures often only reached the recommendation stage.



To be successful, national formative assessment should be primarily aimed to identify students’ weaknesses and strengths on particular topics or subjects, and to determine how instructional strategies and learning activities can be revised and improved in accord with the learning goals previously articulated and discussed with different stakeholders.



This assessment must never be used to evaluate teachers’ performance and level of competence. If it is, the very purpose of the assessment shall lose its meanings. Instead for students’ learning, the assessment might be used by the teachers for their own good. It might be expected that teachers shall result to teaching to the test, where they use the opportunity to teach their students only the lessons to be tested or even answers to exact questions of the assessment.

Images from

1) http://www.nscb.gov.ph/headlines/StatsSpeak/2009/071309_3.gif

2) http://www.mindanews.com/wp-content/plugins/dynpicwatermark/DynPicWaterMark_ImageViewer.php?path=2013/06/07andap02.jpg

3) http://mc.pshs.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/sub_phy.jpg

4) http://kbarnstable.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/eportfoliocartoon-346082.png

5) https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVsfoztllNHOFjX6sKT2Eg0WoX3u45BHAaKXWv0mZF9KiYGqVKVQgXl1mOu8_O9vREkWdgnY-PYTZNWnwcScufO1zIXdBKyir_6S9kDQq94eSk_4_0DV0RilqHeHmKIvYNkwIjuG9XAwUe/s1600/multiple+choice+cartoon.png

6) http://www.roanokecountyva.gov/images/pages/N584/test-cartoon005.gif

I Am Not Shallow

As student, assessment shall be a part of my being one to determine what, why and how I know what the teacher teach/guide me to know. In most cases, I align my approach of study on how and what means of assessment it might be if ever it was revealed to me or not before hand.



During my elementary days in not so distant past, the aims of a particular lesson were not adequately discussed or even mentioned before it was taught. In which case, I did not know what to do with the materials presented on us. Of course we knew that at the end of the unit, a quiz or long test is at hand. If the time of remembering was revealed, it was the only time that I began to review/ re-read what was taken up in class. More often than not, I was satisfied with the result of my assessment. However, I felt disappointed when the teacher got his/her gotcha moment when most of us did not get most of the correct answers during surprised quizzes. The bad thing was, the lesson was never repeated or further discussed even if no one understood them fully as determined by the test.



Because of the above experience during my primary education, I became fully wary of my teachers’ assessment approach when I entered high school. I began to be more attentive during class discussion and lectures. I saw to it that I reviewed the materials and did all my assignments regularly. It was this attitude that I maintained my position in class until I graduated. In essence, I aligned my approach to study not because it was my choice but because it was expected of me. In fact, the assessment directed my learning in some ways.



Some researchers maintained that the traditional objective type testing such as multiple choice and true-false, produce surface learning because it prepares student to be rote learners. Students often get only the tip of the iceberg when they engage their learning with this type of assessment. Opponents of traditional testing argues that understanding or recalling some facts and concepts is shallow learning because this kind of learning is only the base or at the bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy.

Well, I am not that shallow. Although it may seem that what multiple choice and true-false exams determine is how students remember or recall facts and concepts but in reality, these kinds of tests also involve in-depth learning because choosing the correct answer involve not only recalling but also understanding and analysis especially if the question is full of ambiguous words and trickery. It is worth noting that the present licensure examinations in the Philippines and elsewhere involve multiple choice tests. If it is not an effective and reliable indicator of learning in most professions, why does the Philippine Regulation Commission (PRC) continue utilizing this kind of assessment?



Assessment directs students learning and plays an important role in their approaches to study. During my senior year in high school, the most dreaded test of all was the National College Entrance Examination or NCEE. The NCEE determines whether or not a high school graduate can enter a four or five-year program in the college or university. The NCEE is the gate way to students’ dream of becoming a professional. Although passing it is the most important test that students undertake, teachers in our high school did not bother to teach to the test. Whether it was a policy or not, senior students were left to study by themselves and teachers did not teach us on what in the test. The teachers only advised us to buy a copy of a reviewer to be familiar with the mechanics of the test. I can remember that the teachers did not do any formal review for this assessment although the life of students depended on passing it.



It is really very uncomfortable to know that while undertaking a course or study, the teacher is there to measure how much you learn or retain from the materials he/she discussed or provided. Either test, product or performance, assessment limits the means by which students approach their learning. You sometimes feel that you are surrounded by materials that you may not use in real life or you should only need to know a portion of it. Tests usually create anxiety to some students as if the whole world will judge them based on number or letter grades. The results often rank or classify a person and distinguish others from the rest - there is a summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude and the other graduates. With this, learning becomes competitive as if only few deserve to be high achievers.

I felt some pressure while studying at the University of the Philippines because of its reputation as the premier center of learning of learning in the entire country. Thinking that all Iskolar ng Bayan are bright students that get high grades, I often felt disappointed when mine were average. I felt that I might not be maintaining UP standards. Lately of course that I realized that my misconceptions about UP were often wrong. However, it is expected that UP graduates are different from any other students, no matter what it is on your Transcript of Record. It is a reputation that is maintained by many corporations and leaders. Well, I say amen to this one.



The results of assessment also brought joy to my being especially when I deserved what I labored. I felt elated when I passed a very difficult examination or get the highest grade in one project. The praise and congratulatory remarks from parents, relatives, and friends when you finally received your diploma or certificate of recognition erased all the hardships, anxieties, stress and other bad effects of assessments on your learning and being. At the end of the day, I realized that it is really “No gain, No pain!” I am not that shallow, then.

Reference

Morgan, C, Dunn, L, Parry, S & O'Reilly, M 2004, The student assessment handbook : new directions in traditional and online assessment , Routledge Falmer, London. ISBN: 0749438835

Images from

1) http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/wp-content/uploads/writing-exam.jpg

2) http://www.funnyfly.com/images/exam.jpg

3) http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci102/NatSci102/images/exams.jpg

4) http://www.lawphil.net/images/logo/prclogo.gif

5) http://larrycuban.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/test_cartoon.jpg

6) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Sablay.jpg

The Final Mark

The culmination of learning activities in a unit of study or a course happens when the teacher gives his/her final judgment to his/her students. Since it may entail positive or negative repercussions or both, the final mark given by the educator needs to be fair, appropriate, and truly represents the level of understanding and skills exhibited by the learner throughout the curriculum. Dunn & others point out that educators cannot change his/her final judgment of students once it is submitted to the school officials. It is with this limitation of summative assessment that teachers must be careful in measuring the performance and skills of learners.

Reminiscing

During my elementary days way back in the middle of the 1960s, I did not care much about the grades given by my teachers. From Grade 1 to 3, there was no report card given after the so called grading periods. The final mark was given only towards the end of the school year when honor rolls were selected based on that single grade.  I was fortunate to be included in the top 5 of my class during those days.

I was awarded second honor when I finished Grade 1. I can still remember how honor pupils were selected back then. Five of us who were in the top of the class were given a 20-item test. In that examination, the first honor got 15 points while I managed to answer 14. We could have been “tie” if I did not misspell “dilaw” as “diliw”, as one of the colors of the Philippine flag. I could still remember one question which I did not get – the one who leads the city. The answer was the mayor. Nobody got that right because we never studied anything about our city officials. The bulk of the curriculum was to read and write in the national language and to learn addition and subtraction of three-digit number. Aside from the “Ang Abakada”, the only book we had was “Doon Po Sa Amin.” So it was unfair that our teacher gave that question about city officials. It was a case of poorly aligned assessment, as I know now.

 

I was in Section 1 during my Grade 2 and 3. At the end of the school term, I got the honor of third and fourth, respectively. Up to this day, I did not know how our teachers evaluated our performance and how they selected the honor rolls. I was a little bit upset because some of my classmates were ahead of me in the honor list when I knew I performed more than them in the examinations and recitations. They were only ahead of me in projects because they could buy more beautiful materials. Nonetheless, most of their projects were done by their parents.

The true performance evaluation came during Grade 4 until Grade 6. In those grade levels, favoritism was out of the picture. We were judged based on our performance on the learning goals of the teachers, school and district officials. It was then that I realized my true worth when I was chosen as first honor in those three consecutive levels of schooling. In those 3 years, formative assessments as the basis for summative evaluation were introduced. Report card was given to students and parents every quarter with teacher’s comment on the performance of the students. Before the cards were distributed to parents, our teacher conferred with each parent about the performance of their child.

 

I was a bit disappointed, though, during our elementary graduation because in that year no valedictorian was officially selected. The school officials, following the recommendation of higher officials from the Ministry of Education, changed how the students were assessed. Instead of numerical grades, letters were provided as grades – “O” for outstanding; “VS” for very satisfactory, “S” for satisfactory, “NI” for need improvement; and “F” for fail. Any student who got “O” in a subject from any section was given a certificate of recognition. Although I got  “Os” in all my subjects and received all the certificates, I was not officially recognized as the valedictorian. Another student from a different section also got the same number of “Os” as mine. Nonetheless, I was recognized as the top student during that time by my classmates.

Back to Reality

Now, as I plan to create an example of assessment of learning for a certain topic, I realized that it was not as easy as I thought it was. Although I did not have a clear idea about how my teachers from grade school to college judged my performance and skills, it was then very challenging for them if they practiced the best appraisal for their students.

In generating assessment of learning, the most challenging part was to formulate the reasons why my partner (Regina) and I were doing the assessment. Without this critical step, we could not advance to the next or other stages of planning. It was only when we articulated our reasons for evaluation that we were able to go ahead with the process. However, we were somewhat in a loss when we were ensuring the quality of our assessment. In this sequence, each of us gave our inputs on how to come out with quality assessment and consolidate them. We were confident that our collaboration was deemed satisfactory if not very satisfactory. (See our effort here....)

 

Based on my observations, our teachers in elementary and even in high schools were not really practicing in-depth assessment of their students. In high schools, only few of my teachers were really interested on our achievements as students.  Some of them did not care if we really understood the subject matters as long as the bright students got high scores during quizzes and periodical tests. I can still remember our English teacher during my senior year who was often absent in the entire school year. I could not even remember the subject matter he was teaching. He did not give back our periodical test papers. I did not even know how he gave me an 85 as the final grade.

More often than not, most teachers moved up to the next lesson even though many students were still could not understand the previous ones. The goal of teaching, then, was to finish the curriculum no matter what. Having said this, since I did not have any idea then of the nature and purposes of assessment, I did care less if my classmates understand our lessons or not. My focus then was only for my own learning. I had to study and to get good grades because I was on scholarship.

 

I think practicing teachers do their assessment tools, such as checklist, journal, observations, assignments, examinations, etc., based on the reasons why they are doing the assessment. However, I also observed that teachers often do assessment procedures as requirements for the fulfillment of their duties to the school officials and not for the education of the children. I said this because I have observed in our barangay’s elementary school that teachers asked their students to make home reading reports only as requirement and not to teach them how to summarize good stories or anecdotes. Mostly, the parents were doing the reports or they were done by somebody else for a fee. Children’s “work” were seldom checked and/or graded.

Because assessments consume most of the time of the teachers especially when they are teaching 50 to 80 students, it was also a practice to give the same assessment the year before or follow what the other teachers are doing. It is always the case that these proofs and evidences of performance of the students (and/or their parents) are often not given the right attentions that they deserve. They are just lying there in the classroom cabinets, teacher’s desk or teacher’s home.

Because of my experience, I can say that these practices of some of our teachers and school officials undermine the very purpose of assessment of learning. As in my elementary and high school days, students will not have any idea on how they got their grades, especially when assessment criteria were not mentioned and discussed in the first place (which is usually the case). If the learners did their works and were not graded, it can create negative signals to the concern. They might not perform or loss enthusiasm the next time around. And if parents did the job and their child got high marks, those who did their own work will get frustrated and might follow the trend in the next unit or school year. In the end, it is the students who shall suffer because they did not get the good education that they aspire. The teachers shall be affected too because they did not become instruments of learning but only tools for marking bewildered and disgruntled students and learners.

Images from

1) https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Qm3-3uZ6NMtFwmN5yyPE0zBaJ23ti_kw5A5gfCNFA3jqM1OMKwdbcAdIe4EPD2t660Zz33GHSHRnF-q_G7_aRBPNJycsnC5mh85aMeH-ych_Ctmg0hT6u86JKRXqPYB_J9lYpncXqgU/s1600/Castellanos+Elementary+School+Openng+Oct+14-10+013.jpg

2) http://certificates.phillipmartin.info/school_cert_honor_roll_boy1.gif

3) http://media.salemwebnetwork.com/YWJ/CMS/ImageGallery/Resources/Lessons/2011/06/DisappointedGraduate_lg.250w.tn.jpg

4) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5283/5380287379_ae5abdfb3b.jpg

5) http://pvcs.flbsd.mb.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/GermanSchoolProjects_004.jpg

Reference

Morgan, Dunn, Parry, & O'Reilly. The Student Assessment Handbook: New Directions in Traditional and Online Assessment, Chapters 1-2. NY: RoutledgeFalmer

The Target is Me

The primary target of educational assessment, whether traditional or alternative, is the student or learner. However, for a student like me, the focus of assessment such as test, homework, and project, is to determine if I understood or can recall what the teachers taught me to understand. Assessment is the means to gauge my level of performance and finally certify if I meet the requirements of the course/study so that I can move on to the next level. Nothing has been said that the evaluation used is for me to make control of my learning.



During my education, from elementary to college, the goals of learning are not explicitly articulated by the teachers, instructors or professors. They tend to believe that the students already know what are expected of them. They guess that tests, long or short, homework or assignment, midterm, projects, and finals are parts of student’s life that the learners should be prepared to hurdle or accomplish. As a result, I also tend to believe that when I got high grades, I am already a good learner.



The problem with assessment as learning, like assessment of and for learning, lies with the teachers not telling their students why they are doing what they are doing. They begin their lessons without articulating to the learners what they will and need to accomplish at the end of the unit of study. They give tests, ask students to submit a project, grade them and move on the next lesson. They do not care if almost half of the class did not understand the lesson. The goal is to teach the next lessons and finish the materials that school administrators tell them to teach within the prescribed time frame.

From elementary to college, the concept of metacognition and self-regulation did not register in my mind. This is because my teachers did not introduce the concepts or even the words. I sense that the teachers’ primary role then is to give knowledge rather than facilitate learning. This is the reason why I was not fully prepared when I entered the university. I thought that my professors will just deliver the lecture for us to understand and memorize. It was surprising when they just gave you syllabus and they expected you to know the lessons and be able to articulate them during class discussion or during exams. The horror was that they gave you exams they did not teach or discuss as if they are gods that gave orders to their subjects and expected them to know them by themselves.

Students learning by themselves will not materialize if teachers themselves do not give the reasons to do so. The learning goals or expectations should be clear and specific; the methods of instruction are well-defined; and the assessment tools should be in accord with the two and the outcomes are achievable. Regular feedback to each and every student should be given at appropriate time interval to correct any misconception and enhance their learning.



Individual differences in terms of strategies and styles should be taken into consideration in judging one’s performance. Ample time should be given to students to reflect on their own learning. Teachers should continuously monitor students’ progress and strategies until they achieve the potential to self-assess and self-regulate. However, to do this, teachers should provide genuine opportunities and create environments so that learners feel safe, confident, responsible and independent in their approach to self-study.

Reference

Earl, L. & Katz, S. (2006). Chapter 4, “Assessment of Learning." In Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose in mind. Western & Northern Canadian Protocol for Collaboration on Education, 41-54). Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/assess/wncp/rethinking_assess_mb.pdf

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4) http://rlv.zcache.com/teachers_rule_female_teacher_cartoon_photosculpture-p153515481360359988zv6l5_210.jpg

5) http://bc.onlineschool.ca/images/student.jpg