The past several months have been an all out soul searching, though provoking, head slapping, paper ball throwing adventure as I spent unthinkable hours examining how I assess my students in my classroom. In the day of standardized testing (in Minnesota it is the MCAII tests) everyone is focussed on the numbers...that's all they seem to care about. I know it has a part in the overall, big picture, or education but I have a really hard time putting so much emphasis on what students do on one single assessment.
My plight began when I started reading numerous blog's written by teachers as I tried to find a way to teach "better" not "harder." As I was doing so I started to see a pattern evolving as more and more of these teachers were using a skills/standards based approach to assessing students. The further I trodded along the more I began to see that I was not necessarily going about assessments the best way. Just two years ago we purchased new textbooks for our math curriculum and along with it came an assessment system...you know what I mean...the canned, ready to use, textbook made tests. I sadly admit that I have used them in the past...and the more I look at them the more I think they are not all that useful. They can be used as an assessment of learning but certainly not for learning.
This is where my journey took a turn. My new focus was on creating assessments for my classroom that are skill/standards based and are formative in nature...that is...students and I can use them to guide our learning/teaching. To do this I was excited to enlist the help and advice of the other math teachers on our staff (we are all in a PLC together and we made common assessments one of our tasks for the year). I thought this would be a no brainer and we would be able to crank out some really good stuff....oh was I wrong. Nothing but resistance!
Well...gotta go now but I will continue on with this discussion.
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