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Rebecca S. Anderson – Why Talk about Different Ways to Grade? The Shift from Traditional Assessment (TA) to Alternative Assessment (AA).

1. The overuse of everything (lecture, objective test, etc)

In TA students are expect to absorb everything without by the perception that all that will come out in exam. Most students will just focus at the end of the lesson which learning to me should be in progressing process until we are proficient enough. That why there is a need in shift to a more efficient assessment.

2. Diverse student population
-Learners’ needs and learning styles varies and one size fits all cannot cater to all of them
-Consideration is given to the learning styles, language proficiencies, cultural and educational backgrounds, and grade levels of students
-Is authentic because it is based on activities that represent actual progress toward instructional goals and reflect tasks typical of classrooms and real-life settings
-Focus is on documenting student growth over time, rather than on comparing students with one another.
-Emphasis is on students' strengths (what they know and can do with the language), rather than on their weaknesses.
-Process vs. Product

3. Shift of Paradigm 

Constructivism starting to influence by the social-constructivism. Where student is learning as one society and they will work together as one. Student is the lead in their own learning. Student has more power in class to determine what they want to learn. Hence this will help student to get more self-monitor in their learning. They can do many experimental to test or challenge themselves to the limit that they can achieve and push a little by little forward.

4. Traditional and Alternative Separate.

Alternative Assessment.

5. Comparison between TA and AA

Although AA seem a favorite nowadays it not necessary that TA is bad. It just when we need to know when to use them? How to use and assess? What to assess? They need to be a balance to everything. Exposure to TA must be balanced with AA also.

Edutopia – What Works in Public Education

The video on “Assessment Overview: Beyond Standardized Testing” point a lot of issues in alternative assessment. Here are some of the point that I think significant:

1. Students are being over-tested and under-examined.

Over-tested > student spend hours and hours to prepare for test ad being pressured by the expectation that they should excel in exam to get a “brighter” future. Thus student are not being well prepared to face the real world. This is where they are being under-examined where tangible soft skills (driving force, determination, ability to solve problem, leadership) are being neglected. All this skills will comes very handle in the real world situation in the future. Hence, we should not overlook this point to make sure the effective learning.

2. Performance-based assessment.

Student no longer required memorizing concepts or learning but they need to apply the concept itself inside the learning. They are given a project where all their skills and knowledge is put to the test at the same time. It is like killing “2 birds with one stone”. Maybe to some critiques this method is time consuming but I think it worth the time. I began to see that student should develop their performance, teacher will evaluate with the appropriate rubrics.

3. Focus in-depth learning

Able to see, understand and explain concept or what they have been learning. By doing this they can self-monitor and learning would not be so boring to them. Expose student to assessment where they can apply knowledge to meet the highest standard and challenge them to the limit.

Week 1: Ground Zero to LTA

Week 1: Summary/ Review

 Language Testing and Assessment is a very wide concept that every teacher or future teacher should know very well. A good teacher should be able to understand the relationship between teaching and assessment. Ironically, most of teachers, even the experiences one face the problems in differentiate or understand the underlying meaning of assessment and testing. To be honest, me myself also still a little bit blur in classify this two terms. That is because, to me both word mean the same it is inter-changeable. Yes, after watching the movie that Dr Lee had provided us with it come clear that most people think assessment =test=MCQ=true-false and etc. This is very wrong in all ways.

Sadly Malaysia education system supports this kind of so call "assessment" where grade will decide student future. Which to me seem unfair. Maybe some students are born with "exam oriented skills" but some may not and they will left-out, elsewhere they have so much "latent" skills such as leadership, communication, drive force and so on. This skills need to be develop to prepare student in the real world situation that usually not A, B and C choice of situation. That why, we Malaysian should move to a new approach of assessment rather than Assessment for Learning to a more current and formative assessment such as Assessment for Mastery, Performance and Authentic.

After listening to the lecture, I catch up a little bit of the big "umbrella" real perspective of assessment that is:

i. Assessment - procedure/ how it is done continuously.

ii. Evaluation - either the goal achieve or not quantitative of data.

iii. Measurement - to determine if that being taught have achieve.

iv. Testing - an instrument used to measure student understanding or not.

Well that all I can understand for now but looking forward to "dig" the more truth. Frankly speaking, I am not a fan of test (papers and pencils), but I like to see knowledge far beyond than the syllabus can offer. I like to quote from the video that Dr Lee had showed to us stating that "learning should be a celebration" - so student will not see learning as a pressuring anymore and they can explore their potential to the maximum. Yes I do agree on the point that "excellence is NOT a single act, BUT rather a habit". Student should be given change to monitor their own learning and keep track on growth by doing constant self-reflection.

I have to admit it such a beautiful opening to me. To be able to see teaching in the highest standard and to make sure that I have all the knowledge need to become the 21st century teacher. As the students demand more and more from teacher because they are thirst for knowledge. Oh I like to point out, it a need for future teacher to catch up with technology, in this rapid race of savvy and technology. I hope this course LTA will provide me with that kind of opportunities. Looking forward to know more about assessment through out this course.