Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning

Trying to find new and better ways to assess and evaluate our student's learning or understanding of anything is going to be a continuous on-going battle. Chapter 13 in Teaching Literature to Adolescents is all about ideas on figuring out what your students have learned.

We all have our personal opinions on assessments we like and don't like. Personally, I never liked tests or quizzes, I would much rather write a paper, reflection, or do just about anything else. Then again, now that I understand the use and the 'why' behind giving a quiz or a test, I have become less appalled at the idea of them. Tests will still make me uneasy, but quizzes I see potential and use for. I like that quizzes don't always have to be an actual graded assignment. Instead, it could be for participation, or for a teacher to just get an idea as to where their students are currently at and if they are understanding so far.

Interpretive strategies are suggested within this chapter, but also listed is the criteria for evaluating those interpretive strategies. One that stood out and seemed actually enjoyable to me is perspective-taking. The criteria for this strategy is "students compare and contrast characters' perspectives to infer tensions or conflicts between characters." (pg. 227). This would be a fun activity to do like midway through a book involving a protagonist and antagonist and for students to be able to make their own predictions or express thoughts and ideas about the characters. Not only would this show me that the students are reading and paying attention to the book, but also help them to become more interested in the book by making predictions about the characters.

We discussed previously on discussions as a way of teaching and using discussions in the classroom. I liked the suggestion of evaluating classroom discussions by paying attention to students' use of certain discussion skills like, "their frequency of participation, their ability to formulate an interpretation, provide support for their interpretation, restate others' interpretations, pose counter-interpretations to these others' interpretations, ask questions to the group, define an emerging consensus, define links to other texts or resources, and adopt certain critical lenses." (Pg.228). When we did discuss as a class the use of discussions in the classroom, we did not really talk about using them as a tool for evaluation. I honestly did not think about it, but it makes sense. This would also be something for students to reflect back on or take notes on to use later for a paper or another assignment. For them to be able to discuss their interpretations and provide support could help them later when writing an essay that needs claims and evidence.

As teachers, we need to make sure students are picking up what we are trying to get across to them or teach them. An idea presented in this chapter called "exit memos" sounds like a simple and easy way for teachers to determine what the students have taken in and what they might not be understanding. an "exit memo" is a freewrite where you ask the students to either reflect on what they learned or where you even just ask them what they have learned for that day in class. I personally like this idea because it isn't like a test where there is a bunch of stress on the students to make sure they regurgitate exactly what you have taught them. Instead, they can freely express in their own words what you taught them and/or what they are not understanding or catching onto. This is a great way to keep stress and anxiety levels down in a classroom, because in all honesty, who doesn't freak out when you hear the word 'test'.