"Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning"

Assessing and evaluating students is a major aspect of teaching.  This article really helps to lay out ideas for assessing and evaluating our students.  It is important to know that the ideas of what it means to "learn literature" differ from teacher to teacher, and that is what can set up the assessment tools that we use.  Some teachers like to use tests and quizzes to assess their students.  I think this can be a very helpful tool, but personally in literature, I like the idea of using more open-ended questions.  Literature can be a very complex subject and a lot of times there are no right or wrong answers, it all just depends on the students way of thinking.  Open-ended questions give students more of a chance to express their thinking and help us as teachers to understand where there thinking is coming from, rather than just using a test key to mark their answers right or wrong.  The section that gives us alternatives to "correct answer" tests had quite a few great ideas to use also.  I really love journal responses.  I think they are a great way to let students practice their writing, express their ideas, but at the same time gives us a great source to evaluate their thinking and learning.  I have seen this type of assessment a few times, and I have found that it is very helpful and the students tend to enjoy it as well.

One of my favorite assessment tools that was mentioned in this article, and that I have also seen in use, is a portfolio.  This is a great way to see students growth throughout the unit, as well as giving the students a chance to reflect on their work themselves.  I think portfolios can often be a lengthy assessment, but given the right unit, I think they are a perfect way to assess the students work and see how far they have come along since the beginning.  Whenever we give out portfolios, or any type of assessment for that matter, it is important that we give them a rubric or some type of criteria list.  Students need to know what they are being evaluated on so that they have a chance to reach the expectations and goals. I have been in classes where I wasn't given a rubric, and it made the work a lot more confusing and hard for me to complete to the best of my ability.  I think it is extremely important to always give the students a chance to show their work to the best of their ability, by giving them guidelines, rubrics, etc., for we want them to succeed!