With the enormous impact and value of good assessment to our learners, it is important to understand the process behind it. This process because of its evolving nature is referred to as the assessment cycle. It is conducted in different institutions to further improve the teaching and learning using different assessment frameworks. The frameworks used will help educators and policy makers gather evidence of student learning from the desired learning outcomes.
Among the different assessment cycles, Ann Gravells (2016), included identifying needs as one of the components. I believe for any assessment to work, the learners’ needs should be first identified. Aside from academic needs, the learner can have financial, logistics, socio-emotional needs that can affect the learning. Though not all the identified needs can be answered or provided, teachers can give assistance or coordination. Also, this information can help provide a more holistic picture of the learner outside of the classroom.
Westmister College proposed an assessment cycle that relatively included the fundamental components and presented it in a simple four stages Plan-Do-Check-Act. Plan stage is all about formulation of the learning outcomes, Do discusses: 1) developing assessment measures (direct or indirect), and 2) design experiences that lead to outcomes Check-is about the evaluation of the data gathered from assessments and the last, Act is about using the learning to strengthen, revise, improve, reinforce the student learning. Though this framework of assessment cycle did not include identification of needs, it contained another important component- the Act phase highlights why we do the cycle, and why it is called a cycle. This last phase should always be about what to do with the evidence gathered. These evidence will be processed, analyzed, discussed and synthesized to improve the teaching and learning, to improve the assessment cycle, to improve the performance of the school, teacher and most importantly the student’s performance.
The evidence gathered of student information and learning will be the basis for the next courses of actions- strengthen practice, redesign the instruction, change or remove, hence, focus should also be given in the sources used. The relevance of taking into consideration multiple measures of student evidence of learning is another point of emphasis. The future of our learner is at stake, it is our responsibility for all educators to use multiple sources as basis of decision making to get a more accurate and complete picture of the learner.
Today, with the technological advancements, companies are becoming more and more data driven. Decisions are based on consumer data, market trends, sales data. My hope is for our education system to also be powered with relevant data or evidence. These technologies may be costly investments but come to think of it, how much value are we putting on the students’ learning and students’ future success.
Charry's Teaching Odyssey 