Throughout my life, tests and quizzes have been an integrated and essential part of my education. These pencil-and-paper assessments, though stressful at the time, meant a great deal to my teachers and especially, although unknowingly, to me. Assessing students learning is crucial for me to be a successful teacher and to help my students be successful as well. Assessments allow me to see how my students are retaining information and, in turn, help me to improve upon my teaching. Additionally, students often receive feedback on their assessments which helps them to better understand what areas they might be lacking in, helps them to see where they could improve and becoming better students. As mentioned earlier, pencil-and-paper tests are very common and this idea of assessment is the most widely known. However, there is an informal way of assessing students that reduces stress and promotes a more comfortable environment for students. One of these is the use of cold call, or calling on students to respond and contribute to a lesson, even those who are not voluntarily participating. By asking questions, a teacher can determine which students are farther along or behind the other students, which allows teachers to amend their teaching strategies and cater to those students who need it. As a prospective secondary English teacher, I hope to avoid pen-and-paper assessments whenever possible. Thought they will be implemented whenever necessary, the more comfortable my students are, the happier I will be about their learning experience. I plan to rely heavily upon forms of informal assessment such as discussion, asking students questions, and prompting for answers. Additionally, as I will be assigning papers, I will be reviewing these papers to be sure that students are meeting the Core Standards. Two things I hope to emphasize to my students are that (1) they will receive constructive feedback so they may work towards improving themselves and (2) they are always safe in my classroom, meaning they have no reason to be fearful to stressed out by assessments. Hopefully, by communicating these things to my students I will promote a healthy environment for my students to learn and be assessed.
References Eggen, D. K. (2017). Introduction to Teaching: Becoming a Professional. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc.