Ch. 14 QtC's

In my experiences leading an ACT prep program at Austin-East High School, I have run into many students repeating the same thing: “I hate standardized tests.” I am a naturally good test-taker and got a high ACT score in high school, so at first—to my shame—I judged their comment and simply brushed aside what they were saying as basically equivalent to “I’m not that smart.” However, in truly breaking apart what the ACT is asking, I realize that it truly is merely assessing a student’s ability to take a test. Perhaps besides the Math section, none of the sections require knowledge as much as they require being able to discern what the test writers are asking and finding that within a passage. In my career as a high school English teacher, I want to rather assess my students on what they are LEARNING. I am of the mindset that if a future student comes to me and imparts everything they have learned and applied and thought about in my class, they could convince me to raise their grade. I would like to incorporate many authentic assessments (as opposed to traditional assessments) in which I measure real-life skills. For example, I could administer a “thought journal” assignment in which a student is supposed to free write on everything they know about a novel we read and connect it to any real life situation. My goal could also be realized through giving performance assessments, such as presentations of a topic from a book or oral reports. However, I am also aware that I am responsible for preparing my students for “the real world” of college, in which success is measured by how well you can take a test; in in a huge lecture room a University professor cannot assess how much a student has learned. Thus, I do not want to neglect paper-pencil assessments and, unfortunately, standardized assessments. Through this, students must learn study skills, understand how to read the questions, and figure out how to answer questions based on what the test writer is looking for.

As for norm-referenced and criterion-referenced assessments, there are pros and cons to both. For high schoolers, norm-referenced assessments are clearly important for college admissions boards to compare the education of a certain student to those around the country. However, they really don’t give any feedback to the teacher how a student is doing in their class; a criterion-referenced assessment is necessary to break down a student’s specific performance. Each type of assessment is useful in its own way, but each is also vulnerable to error, such as a teacher creating bad criteria, or a test being too standardized.