"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein
Assessments are vital in the school systems and the educational field. However; what exactly is being assessed when viewing children and their progress or decrease of performance? The most effective way to measure children's minds and abilities, I believe, is by reading to a child and encouraging creativity in children as well. Reading to children at a young age and asking questions after storytime may benefit the child's ability to increase and improve their comprehension. Creativity is an essential problem-solving technique that allows children to not only look inside the box; however, it allows them to look outside the box as well. It is evident that most schools use standardize testing to measure children's academic achievement. However, is standardize testing effective when viewing young children holistically? The school systems use the standardizing testing as a source to determine their effectiveness. A child should be looked at more than just needing to learn the basic courses in school; such as, math, science,etc; because ultimately a child makeup is greater than that.
The problem with assessment in South African public schools persists. In 2008 thousands of candidates taking South Africa's first ever National Certificate Examination could not be resulted because of a failure to report school-based assessment (SBA) tasks. Only 62.5% of candidates prepared for the final external examination through a process of continuous SBA passed. In 2009 the pass rate dropped to a new low of 60.7%, which begs the question: why is SBA not serving its purpose of enhancing learning and preparing candidates for the high stakes external examinations? We focus on English First Additional Language (EFAL) teachers' perceptions of SBA in the Further Education and Training (FET) band and the challenges they face with the implementation of the curriculum that calls for drastic changes in assessment practice.
Reference:
Assessment Reform Group 1999. Assessment for Learning: beyond the black box. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. School of Education. Available at http://arg.educ.cam.ac.uk/AssessInsides.pdf. Accessed 2 March 2006.
No comments:
Post a Comment