From your readings and your classroom discussions and activities, what is one principle of effective assessment that you would define for yourself as a classroom teacher?
As many of my classmates have mentioned, thoughtful assessment is integral to effective instruction in class and vice versa. Teachers should be conscious of the ways in which they and their students develop understandings and assess progress. It is critical to adapt our modes of assessment to target specific knowledge, skills and understandings identified by the curriculum; assessment is an organic component of classroom instruction and the way it is crafted to test for understanding must change to help students develop mastery in any discipline.
If the purpose of teaching Literature is to produce critical thinkers who can interpret and evaluate language, engaging with texts rationally and affectively, then the assessment of the teaching of Literature should challenge our students in these areas. One personal principle of effective assessment that I would define for myself is to be creative yet realistic in the way I assess students’ understanding of not only literature, but the discipline as a whole. Purves points out that many teachers who craft assessment questions that do not help students tap into the "imaginative power of literary works” (20). Instead, they only require students to memorize facts about plot and character which students can easily acquire by reading online plot summaries or simplified study guides like Sparknotes. He provides a rather comprehensive overarching framework of how literature can be taught and assessed in schools, dividing it into three sub-domains, namely knowledge, practice and preference. What interests me about his framework is his emphasis on teaching and assessing students on their understanding of the literary “aesthetic”. Personally, I agree that it is important for students to develop their personal aesthetic judgement of texts and be able to differentiate, or at least consider the differences between “good” and “bad” literature. However, it is rather difficult to accomplish this in Singapore due to the general lack of a solid reading culture or background, especially in neighbourhood schools. Though schools try to implement Reading periods within the timetable, students often use these time slots to complete homework or read the same novel that they have been reading all along because they cannot be bothered to bring any new books to school! However, I believe if more emphasis and structures are put in place to encourage students to read (perhaps by giving each primary level a list of recommended books), even at the primary school level, it will help students to be more well-read, which will allow teachers at the Secondary school level to do a lot more to expand and test students’ aesthetic judgment and preferences for different texts.
One practical way in which I think I will be able to assess my students’ understanding of Literature is the use portfolios. Not only does it help students take greater ownership of their learning through the management and organisation of their own work. Students can collect all reading , writing or performing assessments that they accomplished throughout the school year. They must not only collect the final pieces of work they submit, but also attach the drafts of all their work so that they can track their own learning and development. Other test data from literature quizzes, short-answer questions can be included in the portfolio, along with the students’ reading records and even their own self-reflections about their growth as a reader, writer and appreciator of the literary arts. The portfolio will be a good tool to also show parents how their children have learnt and for teachers to assess their success in communicating the necessary skills and knowledge required for the students to obtain certain levels of mastery in Literature.
No comments:
Post a Comment