The Use of Assessment and Its Purposes : Tips for Teachers

One of the most important parts of learning and teaching is assessment. Even, some experts state that assessment is "a bridge between teaching and learning". It is totally true because teaching and learning are two different sides. Teaching is instruction given by a teacher to the students, while learning is the activity conducted by students as the result from the teacher's instruction. However, both of them are likely two sides of a coin, we can not separate each others, particularly when we are talking about curriculum of education.

Commonly, assessment is used to measure the students' learning. We, as teachers, cannot assume or predict our students' acquirement of what we have taught. The simple way to appraise them is by using assessment. But in some cases, the teacher spends a lot of time to record students' progress for assessing them in particular skills. In another time, she/he realizes that the techniques used for the assessment is ineffective due to several factors.

Such the fact mentioned above is found in many cases where the teacher do not understand the types assessment used in her/his teaching. To cope with the problem,the teacher is expected to understand the use of different assessment for different purposes. Therefore, the skillful matching of the type and the way the teacher makes use of a particular assessment activity to the key purpose that it is intended to serve is one of the key of teaching skills (source)

The purposes of Assessment

To use the assessment in your teaching, you must identify some purposes of assessment. Those differences can help the teacher to decide what kind of of assessment will be used that fits his/her teaching process. furthermore, these are the common purposes of assessment (source):

  1. The uses of assessment aims to give feedback of students progress for teachers. The feedback gained enables you to analyze the effectiveness of your teaching including the teaching method and strategies used. Also, it will give you the opportunity to identify the problems arises during your teaching.

  2. The use of assessment aims to motivate the students and give educational impacts on it. Some types of assessment such as test can motivate students to learn more about the subject taught and give educational feedback of their efforts to achieve their goal in learning. In the other hand, the teacher has to anticipate the negative feedback that may arise during your teaching due to the students' low interests in the topic learnt.

  3. The use of assessment aims to clarify the students readiness for next learning and the effectiveness of school system. Some types of assessment such as summative and interim assessment that apply at the end of instruction may allow the teacher to predict the students' readiness for the next learning. When most students fail in previous learning, the teacher can evaluate his teaching to find out the problem faced by students during learning. Also, the assessment may help the education stakeholders evaluating the school system works, such as curriculum and other educational components.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I can say that assessment is one of the key aspects of teaching skills. Understanding the purposes of assessment will enable the teacher to decide the type of assessment used for his/her teaching. However, it is the teacher’s decision on how and what to assess in teaching depends on what purposes he or she has in hand. The ideal teacher always knows how to assess to meet the goal in his/her teaching.



Regards,

@affiedalfayed
(a teacher and writer)



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