Module 9

This chapter was interesting, because student assessment is a very important aspect of teaching. Without it, teachers would never know what progress their students are making and what the teacher need to help them on. Throughout this whole book, the author has given us many different examples of classroom activities to help aid the child in learning new literacy, but the teacher won’t know if these methods have worked, until they have assessed the child.

I think that a huge problem in schools, especially high school, is that there are tests and then the teacher immediately moves on to the next subject, even if the students did poorly on the assessment. This being said, assessments must be used as a review for the teacher, to pinpoint trouble areas and figure out how to help the students move forward. I came upon this problem a lot when I was a student, especially in math, was that I wouldn’t be able to grasp the concepts and we would move on without me ever understanding it, so for the rest of the units, I would be confused, because the teacher did not take the time to clear up questions before moving on. This definitely isn’t the case with all teachers, I know some teachers who use assessments to reevaluate their teaching and ask themselves what they can do to help the students understand. This just goes to show how important assessments are for students and teachers.

The think that I found most interesting about this chapter was the concept of observation as a form of assessment. I guess that I never thought of this as an assessment, because as a student I have always been the one being assessed, so I never noticed any of my teachers observing me (or observing the class), to find out what I know and what I may be struggling with. After reading this chapter, I agree that it is a very important part of assessment, because you can tell a lot about a student by just watching them interact in group work, with other students, and in a classroom environment overall.