Response to Discussion 5 CA
Discussion 1 Kelvin
If you were Francine, what would your decision be?
If I were Francine, I would want my students to learn more about the subject matter and acquire cognitive skills and know-how. The best way to evaluate the quality of learning and the efficacy of my teaching technique is to allow my students to express themselves in pencil and paper freely. Contrary to her colleagues’ sentiments, I would often evaluate my students every once to assess their progress and learning. The students did their experiments in various ways. Some went home; some did it behind the class. Assessing them on a semester-long performance would not be the best practice. I agree with the over-booking argument on the single assessment experience.
However, I will maintain the true-false, multiple techniques to see if my students have grasped the common principles needed to execute the knowledge effectively. In my defense, I will use the wide training technique of assessment to improve my students’ generalizable mastery. Besides, the more they respond to different varieties of assessment techniques, the more they get insights into the learning process, and the more they express themselves. I would spread the 90 percent throughout the occasional assessment throughout the semester. Because my teaching course is mostly instructional, I will cautiously choose the best-constructed response technique keeping in mind that how I instruct them on the experiments and in-class will influence and their performance. In conclusion, I will pay more attention to the periodic assessments of my students, noting where to strengthen and help my students learn. Because I will also be concerned about my student’s extensive knowledge after the experiments. I will also embody low-level selected-response techniques.
Discussion 2 Tammy
If I were Francine, I would lessen the weight of the performance test to around 70 percent. With this being new to both her and her students I feel as though 90 percent is just too much when accounting for the uncertainty if it will even work as intended. Even though the students seem to be doing well at their experiments, there is very little room for error. With this being worth an overall 90 percent, one little mishap could be catastrophic on their final grades. The students knowledge level after taking the class is the most important part, I do not feel as though one grade can reflect that. There are not enough evaluative criterion to base this final grade. I do not feel as though this one test can contain enough information for Francine to know whether she has been effective of not.
Another problem I see with this assessment is that there is no way for students to know where they stand in the class until the end. Just having one overall test at the end gives no information on how the students are doing along the way, what they need to work on, or what the teacher needs to put emphasis on. It seems to me she will be basing this test and how much the students will know on past classes. This class might need help learning different things when compared to her last. While I do agree in the need for a research/experiment-based test, by the time the students turn in their final work it will be too late for Francine to go over any material the students did not understand. If a student believes he or she is doing the work correctly when they are in fact not, they will not know until they untimely fail the class. If there were check points along the way that were graded, I could see this working even at 90 percent. This would allow both the students and Francine to determine what knowledge is being retained and what is not. Biweekly or even monthly check points during the project would allow for the 90 percent to be spread out over more assignments, I feel like this would be the best way to achieve positive results.
Discussion 3 Kim
If I were Francine Floder I would give the students a variety of ways to show that they are retaining and understanding the content she is teaching them. As I read this reading, I thought about myself in this class and how I am not a very good test taker. I will read the chapters, make notes as I’m reading the lectures and still the questions seem to confuse me a lot, so this is not my best grade in this class. I seem to do better when I express my knowledge in projects, papers, presentations etc. As we know, not all people or students learn in the same manner. I have mentioned before having a daughter who is ADHD. She does better at test taking when given oral exams. This is just one way to modify a exam for a test taker with special circumstances. I appreciate the opportunity we have in this class to show our understanding of the information by other ways than taking quizzes.
I think Mrs Floder should offer her students the opportunity to do a project, presentation, research paper, other assignments along with the comprehensive exam to show their knowledge. I also feel that she should not put all the weight on one test. There are so many variable that could happen to a student on a particular test day that could cause a student to not do their best when they may actually know the content very well, but they are not performing well with the questions on one particular test. It sort of goes back to what Benjamin Franklin said that we learned in our lecture this week ” Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” (Benjamin Franklin). I’m much more hands on and learn better as I’m having to do something. In life, in our work, we do not have to take tests very often but we do have to “do” and carry out different things in our job. I feel that preparing students for college and ultimately a job, we need to teach them that there are a variety of ways to express knowledge of a subject matter.
