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.