Additional to Week 1 Reflection

Topic 1: Education Testing, Evaluation and Assessment (Context, Roles of Assessment in Teaching and Learning)

On this topic, I have learned about type of assessment, the purpose of assessment and how to measure and evaluate the students’ achievement through the assessments that are given to them. In my understanding, assessment is a process which we collect all of the information through observation and test, and interpret it to make us easy to make the educational decision making. Meanwhile, measurement means that we are using numerical to attributes and evaluation itself means a systematic process which we judge the learners’ achievement of learning outcomes.

Types of assessment...

1. Standardized assessment - is an assessment which it is administered, scored and interpreted under standard conditions for all examinees; allows the teachers to do some comparison between students from other class in the same school or other school. For examples, Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) and Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM)
2. Non-standardized assessment - is typically used by the teacher in the classroom; teacher can determine whether the students are understand what has been taught to them. Usually, this assessment is done at the end of every class such as quizzes and question and answer session.

The assessment can help teachers when doing their teaching and learning session, which are:

1. Planning, conducting and evaluating instruction.
2. Diagnosing Student Difficulties.
3. Placing Students based on ability, organizing students for group work or sequencing of coursework.

By knowing this context, it helps me as a teacher-to-be to be more aware when doing any assessment in classroom. In my field of study, assessment can help me to understand and know on how to evaluate their skills level, interest, strengths and weaknesses. Through the assessments, I will be able to plan the teaching and learning process efficiently and at the same time, I also will be able to prepare a joyful and happy environment for the children while playing.

Issues in education...

Although it has its own advantages, assessment also do have some issues. One of it is testing young children with disabilities. The use of testing for infants and young children with disabilities cannot be avoided. Assessment should be based on multiple sources of information such as play-based assessment. Other than that, testing young children with cultural and language differences also become the issue. This is becase standardized scores have had a high correlation to parents’ occupations, level of education and family income.