Assessments in the classroom...
I think that the type of assessment shown in the video can be invaluable. It gives the kids a chance to showcase their creativity, think outside of the box, and show they can be successful outside of the test-setting.
This past year in my classroom I have used this type of authentic assessment many times and I would say that I have had mixed results. Some of my kids have produced fantastic projects, skits, raps, poems, etc...while many put in the same apathetic attitude that they do to for traditional assessments. I often do this type of assessment on a daily basis having students write skits to perform based on the lesson, journals from the perspective of a historical figure, or just a poem on what we are talking about.
I also have assigned projects such as my MS artists project, where the students were allowed to choose groups and create a rap, poem, song, short story...etc about anything we had covered up to that point in my class. This project was hard to generate excitement for at first, but eventually yielded some great results. One difficulty I encountered in kids who had less then stellar projects was a obvious lack of preparation, which many kids attributed this to an inability to meet with classmates outside of school.
I tried to eliminate this problem by giving them time in class to work with their groups, but unfortunately this usually led to a few groups working hard and others sitting around without getting much done.
That being said I am confident if we were to do this again in my class many kids who put in little work the first time, would work significantly more after seeing how successful many of their peers were.
In my classroom this summer we will be doing many types of assessments. We will be having quizzes and tests along with my MS artists projects, slave narratives, skits and many more. This is the combination I will be having in my classroom next year.
As much as I agree with the people in the video about the problems with standardized testing, and its inability to show the upstanding qualities many students possess they did not produce a better alternative. Is it not necessary to have some form of objective data to hold college applicants to? Many would make the argument that the SAT and ACT are not truly objective as they are biased against impoverished kids. Unfortunately, this is the system we are in and we have to work to prepare kids for these types of tests or risk their future.
http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/res/litass/auth.html
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Mississippi Teacher Corps Updated: Oct 9, 2009
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