Classroom Assessment: Clear the Misunderstanding

Seventh Reflective Journal for PETA Course

            Finally I started to learn about assessment in PETA course. I have waited for this topic since the first meeting. The reason I really want to learn about this topic is to extend my understanding on classroom assessment because I ever learned classroom assessment briefly in Educational Psychology before. Some things were rather confusing for me about assessment before. Luckily for me after attended PETA last session on 29^th November 2011 all of my confusion is vanished.

            Here I want to share some important points about classroom assessment:

1.      1. Assessment ≠ Test

Many people (including me before I knew the truth) think that assessment and test is a synonym. They think that both terms are interchangeable. However the truth is test and assessment is different. It is because assessment is an effort from teacher to collect data or information about student and this attempt is sustainable. Meanwhile test is an attempt to evaluate student understanding or progress on certain learning material. So to sum up, assessment is bigger than test and test is part of assessment.

2.     2.  Domain of Classroom Assessment

Another misconception about classroom assessment is an assumption which states classroom assessment is all about assessed student’s cognitive. It is because most of schools use paper and pencil test to assess student in learning process. However that assumption is wrong. It is because assessment is not only meant to assess students’ cognitive but also student’s affective and psychomotor.

3.      3. Type of  Classroom Assessments

There are two types of classroom assessment. First is formative assessment and second is summative assessment. For further explanation formative assessment is could be simply define as ongoing assessment like daily test or quizzes. Whereas summative assessment is an assessment which is covered all the learning material in certain period of time. For example is midterm and final test in university and national examination in primary school and secondary school. 

4.      4.How Assessment Support Learning Process

Assessment is one important aspect in learning process. It is because assessment can be a good medium of reflection for us as teacher. So we can know how effective our instruction is.  Another important thing to remember is feedback is really needed in the learning process because sometime there is a gap between instruction and assessment and only feedback which could be the bridge for its.

That all some important points about classroom assessment that we as teacher or teacher candidate should know. Based on those points I realize that my concept on assessment before I study in SSE was wrong. Beforehand I always thought that assessment is related with test or quizzes which never fail make me stress out.  It is because at the time my teachers never told me about their method to assess students. So I jumped to the conclusion that assessment is midterm, final test and quizzes and I thought that once I fail in one of those tests I will fail the entire course.

      In SSE I feel better because in every course the lectures give student the rubric of assessment which explains about all things that being assessed. So student will know what they have to do. In the future I think will copy my lectures in SSE way with giving a rubric of assessment for my course to my student. So they will know about what I expect from them.