Webb of Thoughts

I’ve been thinking a lot about final assessments, and assessment in general, lately. If we started education today, with no knowledge of what has happened in the past, would we still have tests?  Tests confined to two hours?  Tests full of multiple choice questions? Tests with questions intended to trick students?  Tests where we expect students to memorize things word for word?  Tests strictly with paper and pencil?  Test where collaboration equals cheating? Today, I don’t think anyone in their [...]

One thing I’ve learned in my first year of teaching is that real, meaningful assessment is not easy. It’s easy for me to make multiple choice tests, maybe with some true/false or matching questions.  I could probably grade more than one a minute once I got going with them.  I may even be faster if I had a scantron type machine. But when I assess this way, I don’t actually find out what my students know.  I get a number, [...]

It’s currently the end of trimester and time for finals at my school. Suddenly, all of the calm and motivated students I have taught this year have become something completely different.  Learning is out the window.  All they care about right now is what is going to be on their tests or final assessments.  The peace and order in my classroom has turned into near chaos with the looming final assessments. I even have students in my classes where I’m [...]

I’m only six weeks into my student teaching and I’m slowly starting to get the feel of how a classroom works.  I am starting to better understand what to expect in different situations, although there always seems to be something that surprises me. However, there is one constant I have found in every class.  No matter what we are working on, one question will always be asked a number of times: “Is this right?” It’s  a simple yes or no [...]

I made this video for my EPS 350 class this semester. Instead of writing a final reflective paper, we created mini documentaries to show our growth over the semester. The video is just under fourteen and a half minutes long and can be viewed by clicking play below or here. I used iMovie ’09 and a FlipCamera to shoot all of the film. I originally had over three hours of footage that I clipped down to the 14 minute video.

To kick off our Winter 2011 semester we attended a conference covering many different education topics.  For one session I chose to attend a presentation about physical education assessment, mostly since I know nothing about physical education and thought that perhaps I could get some ideas that could translate well over into math and the sciences. To kick off this particular presentation, the presenters posed a question to us;  Should effort be included in assessment?  I immediately thought to myself, [...]