Teaching Portfolio
Alice Marlow
To an untrained eye it may appear that assessments are only present within a classroom as pre/post tests, end of course exams, or standardized state tests—or that they are a necessary evil as a teacher. However, the aspect of assessments holds a much more imperative role within a learning environment. For instance, not all assessment has to be held formally and rigorously for every activity or assignment given to students. In fact, observation of students as they work through their problems can be much more informative of their progress because it is on such a personal, individualized level. Assessments are also important for the entire process of guiding instruction and evaluating whether re-teaching is necessary for further instruction or comprehension. In this sense, its necessary to use triangulation, with standards, student performance and intentional instruction, in order to guide teaching and reexamine any points that may lead to misunderstandings with students.
Assessment comes in all forms, but it must be valid in order to fulfill its purpose. For instance, students should not be assessed on material they haven’t learned or been introduced to. The point of education should not be to trick our students or surprise them with information without first allowing them the opportunity to explore and dissect all of the concepts within the larger main ideas. It is then our job, as teachers, after the assessment, that we apply the information of our students’ learning and apply it onto our lessons. If our students fail, then we must reexamine how we presented and taught the information to our classes. In order to do this, we must connect our teaching to the state standards (or Common Core) in order to guide our instruction based on the knowledge and concepts our students are expected to gain within our classrooms. Furthermore, we must evaluate our students’ performance on an assessment in order to ascertain if our assessments are valid as well.
Philosophy of Assessment