Deborah Calabrese EDU 530 Assessment and Evaluation Reflective Journal Assignment #1 July 14, 2012

After reading the first two chapters of Pophams book, Test Better, Teach Better, I now have a better understanding of how testing impacts teaching. Testing not only helps clarify inferences made about a students learning, it can also help drive instruction. I also understand that different kinds of tests provide different kinds of information. When I think back to my grammar, middle school, and high school educations, I feel as if I have been slighted. I grew up in a time when information was presented by teachers and students were expected to memorize information and regurgitate it back to the teacher. This only showed that I attained the skill of memorizing. There was no critical thinking involved. I was never taught how to think, only what to think. Teachers were not concerned with how a student learned. Their only concern was that the student remembered what was taught. If teachers had explored how I learned best, they would have realized that I needed a hands-on approach that explained why 5x6=30 and not just simply because that is the answer. I needed visual cues along with verbal instruction. As a result, I have struggled with math my entire life. I have difficulty adding numbers in my head because I need pencil and paper to use the algorithm method. It wasnt until I started working in an elementary school in which the students were being taught alternative ways to add and

subtract that I realized there are many different ways to learn math. The paths to learning and teaching are many, just as there are many paths for assessment. I remember, at times, disliking writing while in school. I am not the best speller, so I would often get hung up on a word and lose track of my thoughts. I had one teacher in fifth grade that indentified my struggle. Sometimes, instead of making me write, he would sit me next to his desk and have a conversation with me to informally assess my comprehension of a story we had just read. Naturally, I still had to do the writing, but through our conversations, he gained the information he needed. I also recall having to take multiple choice, and vocabulary tests in which the correct answer was selected from a word bank. These tests leave too much to chance. If I didnt know the right answer, all I had to do was use the process of elimination. These kinds of tests never measured my true understanding of a word. I will avoid using only these kinds of test for vocabulary in my classroom. I would like my students to be deep thinkers. I want them to use the vocabulary they learn. Writing a sentence, using a vocabulary word in the proper context, or drawing a picture that depicts the word would offer valuable information as to a students true understanding of a words meaning. I will give my students various kinds of assessments. Not all children learn the same, not all children should be tested the same. Knowing how my students learn and how they can show me what theyve learned will be the most important tasks in order for me to plan my lessons accordingly. Informal and formal assessments will give me valuable information since a teachers understanding of students knowledge, abilities, and attitudes should form the basis

of the teachers instructional decisions (Popham, p. 5). This is especially true for not just planning purposes, but for clarity of curriculum purposes. Curriculum can be broad. I need to clarify and narrow the scope of it to customize my lesson to be goal specific. Popham explains that if the curricular aims that a teacher must address are open to multiple interpretations, then off-the-mark instruction is likely to occur, bringing with it lower test performances (p. 7). I think creating a range of lesson, each aim being goal specific, but allowing for an array of skills to utilized, allows students to generalize their skills and knowledge. I want my students to continue to apply their knowledge and skills while learning new ones.