Assessment and feedback

Date: Wed 2.10.2018

1. What are the goals and intended outcomes of assessment and feedback in vocational education?


2. What is the difference of assessing competence and assessing the learning process?


3. What are the most common assessment methods, how do they work and differ from each other?

HOMEWORK

1. Comment at least three other student’s blogs. (Write a comment, assess, add feedback — be real but not offensive!) 2. Use at least one written source in your blog. Also mention that source! (1)

My reflection:

Is it important to assess students? Do we assess students in one particular field with a specific assessment tool? Is it right?

The word assessment can be define in several ways. Assessment can be used to give a grade to the student, this will represent the student competence level at that point in time when the assessment was made. Now, do we need to assess students from grade 1 to 5 or by giving marks for example from 1 to 100. Are we actually segregating students at the end of their school term, like these are grade A students and they have 90 and above marks, and these are grade F students, that have less that an amount of marks set by a criteria. 

Another way of looking assessment, is a way to see it as an opportunity for the teacher to improve the learning process of the student and at the same time improve the teaching process for the teacher. This is so, because assessment is a powerful too, and can be stressful for both the students and the teachers. Teachers may use assessment as a tool to mark, grade and a strategy to evaluate whether the student has fulfil the course criteria, but assessment should not be used as a tool to intimidate and maybe punish students. Further, can assessment be conducted using the same methods for everyone? The link below shows an analogy of it:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwivwLy6mfbdAhVBtIsKHZ7BAzYQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.robertbrewer.org%2Feinstein-is-wrong%2F&psig=AOvVaw0Qh7jnpyyZQdlI9qKAzflp&ust=1539065907593161

Boud (1995) stated that ‘every act of assessment gives a message to students about what they should be learning and how they should go about it' (p.2). There are two types of assessment, they are: Formative and Summative. In Formative assessment which is considered as having a low stake, students' learning is monitored and through formative feedback these are improved. An example a formative feedback can be drawing a mind map at the end of a lecture that identifies the main parts of the lectures. 

Summative assessments is more popular. Examples of these can be examinations, final projects, essays and writing assignments – they act as a tool for the teacher to assess how much the student has understood and comprehended in regards to the set outcomes of the course. In this way, the teacher sums the total learning of the student and can be used officially to demonstrate a student progress. 

Hyppönen and Lindén (2009) differentiated assessment into three categories, that are: diagnostic, formative and summative. The diagnostic assessment is a way for the teacher to measure the base point level of knowledge that the student has before the start of the course.

References:

Hyppönen, O. & Lindén, S. (2009). Handbook for teachers - course structures, teaching methods and assessment.

Boud, D. (1995). Enhancing Learning through Self Assessment. London: Kogan Page.