Assessment3

Katelyn Kaufman Assessment Journal #3 March 5, 2009

My cooperating teacher decided that she wanted to do a big unit on the history of her students’ town. At the end of the unit she used a short answer test to assess their understanding. The teacher spent about four weeks talking about different aspects of this town’s history. She basically read them information about the town such as when it was started, how it was started, and major changes that it went through. The students were all interested in this unit because it was something that they could become involved with because it was the town that they were currently living in. The teacher did about one or two “mini-units” on the town each week. After each lesson, the students were to write a main idea about the lesson and then draw a picture that best depicts their ideas. The students loved this idea because they were working to have all of these pages together to make a book about their town in the end. In order to assess the students’ understanding of what they were learning about their town, the teacher gave the class a short answer test. She asked pretty basic questions and allowed the students to use their town books to work on the test. The results of this assessment were that most students had done quite well. The students who did not do so well struggled during the test because their town books were not detailed and carefully written. I wonder if the students who did not do well on the test knew ahead of time that they could use the books that they created if they would have put more effort into their work. I would not say that I was really all that impressed by this short answer test. I did not think that it was very challenging for the students. What I saw during the assessment was that most of the students were just flipping through their books looking for the answers but did not really retain the information. I am not even sure that they picked up on the important ideas about their town’s history. Even though I was not thrilled by this assessment method I did like the idea of making the town history books. This was a hands-on activity that all of the children seemed to really enjoy. I feel that the basis for the assessment was well thought out but I think that the assessment could have been more authentic and creative. I felt as if the children were just “spitting out” information to answer the questions on the test. I do plan on using some short answer assessments when I am a teacher but I will probably find ways to make them more interesting and engaging. I do not want my students to be able to get away with just looking up the answers.