''An assessment approach grounded in authentic work calls for students (and teachers) to come to two important understandings: first, learning how adults in the larger world beyond the school really use or don't use the knowledge and skills that are taught in school; and second, how discrete lessons are meaningful , that is , how they lead to higher-quality performance or mastery of more important tasks''.
This makes me think that we have to be clear about what we are teaching and why, because if teachers do not have a clear understanding or the experience they need to transmit to students, how transferability can occur???
Of course students have to reach a definite and clear understanding based on authentic work , but have we experienced enough of this real work as to put it into practice and use it as an authentic assessment????
A second point is how to make our daily work, that is to say, those lessons that are not thought as preparation for a test,for example, and use them as steps to build up effective learning day by day.
Can teachers see the forest but not the trees or can they see the trees and not the forest?
ReplyDeleteIt is of overarching relevance to think about why is it that teachers sometimes teach these discrete set of decontextualized out of the blue contents you refer to, to be subsequently, not even assessed but graded.
It is important too, in order to start thinking like assesors, that we change the view about assessing to give marks, but considerating assessing as a way to enhance and promote learning. In order for this to happen, it is necessary, on the one hand, being clear about objectives to achieve, and on the other hand, trying to design and implement coherent assessment practices at classroom level with the only aim of generating better learning.
However, if we lose sight of generating meaningful learning, we are somehow losing sight of our mission as educators, and thence as teachers and as assessors too.
After reading this article, we can realize that the instruments used, in order to assess X unit or contents should be framed in a real context, because the only way in which a piece of information becomes meaningful is through its use in the real world. That is why teachers must think how that content might match with the reality and control its effectiveness based on the planned tasks. The idea of assessing is to ensure the understanding by all the students, along with the level of transferability that they can reach during the process.
ReplyDeleteClaudia,
ReplyDeleteTo achieve effective learning is what many teachers should aim at. Regrettably though, because of many variables such as lack of time and professional training, we fail to produce a planning that could favor successful understanding and assessment. Wiggins' Backward design could give us the chance to enhance greatly our teaching practices. It is just a matter of making the choice for it. As matter of fact, I happened to propose this type of planning to some colleages I work with in a suject called British Studies. We have faced several assessment problems so my proposal about adopting a Backward Design was accepted.
teachers that do not aim at achieveing efective learning must be taken out from the system, teacher must always be concious on their teaching practices, the must realize if their students are learning and must be profeesionals, have the knowledge and clear goals to work on and know what and why they are doing what they are doing.
ReplyDelete