Module 4 - Activity 1

In Activity 1, I was required to carry out a self-activity which looked at my current assessment methods for my students.  It was done in two phases, the first was from the point of view of me as the teacher answering a questionnaire about things like do I assess the whole class at the same time, do I use written tests, do I assess team work, do I assess the learners' abilities to think and so on.  The second phase was from the point of view of me as a learner, answering the same questions.

In answering each questionnaire, certain questions were grouped and scored (two groups), then subtracted from each other.  My resulting score was fairly low, placing me in the fourth of five categories.  Such a score suggests that my assessment methods are too similar from day-to-day and can use some variance to make assessments more effective.

While I encourage my students to think and in many instances guide them into answering their own questions systematically, I realize that their ability to think doesn't usually form a direct part of my assessments.  In some ways it is assessed indirectly when one question feeds into another on a test (where children should see how the previous question could help answer the next) but it is not often a focused designed to assess their thinking ability.

Collaboration and group work is used more rarely since it often requires a lot of mediation by the teacher to keep the group on point and settle personal squabbles.   Take for instance a group project that was to be submitted by my first form.  One particular group was to submit one sheet of bristol board with a diagram they collaborated on.  The members of the group ended up submitting four different sheets because they couldn't agree to work together on the project.  In this regard, of course, they will lose marks for their lack of cooperation.  However, I am aware that encouraging students to work as a group is a key lesson for life and will make greater efforts to incorporate group work in varying ways.

It is clear that my methods are in need of adjustments.  By the end of this course, I really hope that a revisiting of this activity can show a much more varied approach to my assessment methods and that my role as assessor can become more non-traditional.