Educational institutions are increasingly being asked to prove their worth. School
systems and government agencies are asking for set goals, progress, analyzing strengths and weaknesses in programs, and reports on achievements. I agree
that assessment is important but I disagree with formal assessment. Past
studies have shown that adults experience test anxiety with standardized
testing. Just like adults, children can be intimidated by formal testing. Even though
children are capable of taking standardized tested, I strongly believe that
children learn at their own pace, and that their intellect should not be
compared to other students.
I do agree with developmental assessment which is a structured evaluation of a child's development physical, language, intellectual, social, and emotional by a developmental assessment specialist, or a team of professionals which can include a pediatrician, language specialist, audiologist, occupational therapist, child psychologist, and child psychiatrist. Before the age of 7 a child should have been examined in all domains of development, and ongoing assessment should take place in order to form an IEP.
I do agree with developmental assessment which is a structured evaluation of a child's development physical, language, intellectual, social, and emotional by a developmental assessment specialist, or a team of professionals which can include a pediatrician, language specialist, audiologist, occupational therapist, child psychologist, and child psychiatrist. Before the age of 7 a child should have been examined in all domains of development, and ongoing assessment should take place in order to form an IEP.
Another form of assessment is
observation. I observe my children carefully in order to discuss the child's
development with professionals or their parents. The development assessment is
tailored to the child's age and suspected problem or delay. In general, I spend
time answering a host of detailed questions about the child's growth, physical
movements, behavior, play, and interactions with other children and the rest of
the world. In the end the
professional should take the responsibility for collecting the information and
pulling it together. Then, the information is discussed with the parents and
presented in a written report.
In respect to another country and assessment, Japan has a highly competitive examination system, but it doesn't hold educators accountable for students' scores on standardized tests. Japan specifically excludes student achievement on these tests as a criterion for the self-evaluations that Japanese schools conduct.. In Japanese public schools, elementary and lower secondary students do not take high-stakes tests nor are they assigned to schools by achievement. The examination pressures begin between lower and upper secondary school, when examination results determine the upper secondary school that students will enter.
Rotberg, I. (2006). Assessment around the world. Educational
Leadership, 58-63.
That's a great point that if we as adults feel anxiety and stress with testing, that we should not forget that children probably feel the same. We sometimes hold children to such high standards and expectations that we as adults may not expect of ourselves, also. What do you think of an emotional evaluation? Such as development of empathy, or understanding the feelings of others (Berger, 2014)? I feel like ideally we should have a thorough assessment of the children's development, and I wonder if in that idealistic world it should include emotional assessment.
ReplyDeleteBerger, K. S. (2014). The developing person through childhood (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
I also agree that there needs to be some type pf assessment to show that children are learning, but I tend to feel the same way about formal assessment. I think they show how a student preforms on any one particular day (Meador, 2014). It does not show whether or not that student has improved through a full year of teaching. I also agree that if adults have been known to have test anxiety how much more do children suffer from the same anxiety.
ReplyDeleteI think that a structured developmental assessment would be the best thing for our students. It could be structured so that the students do not even know that they are being assessed. Then the anxiety would not even be there and there. I think that the assessment could also be ongoing so that the result is not just a look at one day in the education of a specific child. There should also be room for environmental factors to be noted so that the teacher or the parents could see what could have been happening at that particular time in the child's life and see that there could be an explanation if the child scores badly.
References
Meador, D. (2014). Pro’s and con’s of standardized testing. Retrieved from
http://teaching.about.com/od/assess/a/Standardized-Testing.htm