Evaluations

The topic this week is how to evaluate our students so we know that they are learning and that we are being effective teachers. One of my favorite quotes is "Some of us will do our jobs well and some of us will not, but we will be judged by only one thing -- the result." Vince Lombardi. By having evaluations it provides the teacher, the students, and the administration with the result. If there are bad grades maybe the teacher did a poor job in teaching the material or evaluating them based on objectives. If the students got a bad grade, a bad result, maybe they did not spend enough time preparing for the evaluation.

As a teacher I want to encourage my students to do a good job. I want them to learn the material and develop skills that will help them after high school. I liked how chapter 14, Evaluation of Learning, talked about affective assessments. In the case study it talked about two students, one that is really smart and good at tests and one that didn't do as well in school but was loved by her boss. I can relate to the second one, as I feel that while I made it by through high school and college, I am very bad at taking tests and translating what I learned onto the paper. At the same time, I never had any problem with authority figures, nor anyone that I worked under. While I personally typically despise tests, I do believe they serve a purpose and will provide me with results which are a necessity.

Thankfully, since I do dislike tests, there are many other forms of evaluation that I will utilize in the classroom. Examples including: concept maps, rubrics, check sheets, and portfolios to name a few. To make sure I have a balanced classroom and to cater to different types of learning styles my students may have, I am going to have a variety of ways to evaluate them and get results.

The readings this week provided a lot of good pointers to decrease student frustration and to provide clarity for them. It even included a website that has a lot of different resources for teachers. This one talks about making rubrics the correct way. This way they will know what they are getting evaluated on and can work on getting the result that they desire.

blogging out,

Jeanne