Assesment Blog Post 1

  Over the years of your education you are constantly faced with assessment, either from your teacher, peers, or yourself.  Growing up in the public school system in Ontario from grades K-8 I do not remember receiving a very diverse means of assessment.  Most of my experiences with assessment from grades K-8 were test oriented, or based on the teacher's evaluation based on a rubric.  I don't feel like this form of assessment was incorrect, far from I think it is necessary, but it was the only form of assessment I remember from those grades.  It wasn't until high school that I had the chance to experience student self-assessment on our work.  However, this form of assessment was rare possibly due to a lack of trust the teachers had in honest student assessment.  It was not until university where it was common to self-assess your performance in seminars and give yourself a grade.  It was also not until university where I felt like peer evaluation actually mattered, mostly for seminar facilitation.  That being said teacher or professor led assessment and evaluation through papers and tests has been the dominant form for assessing my academic performance.  This is not to say that I disliked this method of assessment, I love tests and papers with rubrics but as a student teacher and as someone who has interacted with teachers from many different backgrounds I realize it has not worked for everyone.  

  I still believe that the current methods of assessment still strongly involve the use of tests and rubrics for projects that are evaluated exclusively by the teacher.  However, I also think that we are shifting away from that as the main focus.  I think there is more methods of assessment out there then there was when I was growing up in the elementary school system.  I think that there is more room being made for student self-assessment and peer evaluation.  I also think that anecdotal observations are playing a stronger role in how teachers evaluate a student's performance.   In most Ontario public schools there is likely more diversity in how students are assessed than I can currently think of.  Just based on my own classroom observations I can say that homework worksheets for subjects like math and geography are still common and larger culminating projects for classes like language arts and geography are still used.  Rubrics are things that, based on my observations, are noticeably absent.  Meaning that students are not provided rubrics for how their assignments will be assessed by the teacher.  This may be just due to that fact that I have yet to see them being used, or that perhaps there is a less rigid means of assessment being exercised.  Worksheets are reviewed and graded by the teacher and given back to the students, likely with some feedback and writing on where the student did well or needs improvement. 

  I know that assessment has largely moved past the use of tests and rubrics exclusively, and there are more diverse means of assessment being used by Ontario teachers.  Currently though I just feel ignorant of what kind of advancements have been made since my time in the Ontario public school system.  I look forward to growing my knowledge on this topic and later writing about how my readings on assessment have changed my beliefs and maybe helped enlighten me to methods that I have never considered before.