Assessment of Young Children (BEE 3204) - BA ISAGO University PDF

FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF BASIC EDUCATION AND CHILDHOOD BACHELOR OF EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN (BEE 3204) 1.1 Forms of assessment There are two main types of assessment, each occurri...

FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF BASIC EDUCATION AND CHILDHOOD BACHELOR OF EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN (BEE 3204) 1.1 Forms of assessment There are two main types of assessment, each occurring at different points in the learning process: formative, which occurs both before and during the learning process, and summative, which occurs at the end of key segments in a learning cycle or the end of the learning process. These types of assessments also have different purposes and uses. Formative Assessment ✓ According to Popham (2011), formative assessment is a process that "involves the gathering and analysis of assessment-elicited evidence for the purpose of determining when and how to adjust instructional activities or learning tactics in order to achieve learning goals" (p. 14). This purpose is achieved through two types of formative assessment—pre-assessment and ongoing assessment. ✓ Pre-assessment also known as diagnostic assessment is a type of formative assessment that occurs before a unit of study begins. Whether formal or informal, preassessments are never graded. They are purely diagnostic in nature. When pre-assessing for readiness, for example, teachers attempt to find out ▪ What students already know, understanding, and are able to do regarding the upcoming learning. Page 1 of 7  ▪ What prerequisite learning, if any, may be missing or misunderstood. ✓ Teachers in a differentiated classroom also pre-assess for interest and learning profile, so they can design activities that are motivating for students and that match student learning preferences, as appropriate. ✓ Ongoing assessment is what most people think of when they think of formative assessment. Ongoing assessment occurs at various intervals throughout the learning process. ✓ Its purpose is to find out the degree to which students are "with" the teacher in terms of meeting learning goals, so classroom content, process, and products can be adjusted to better facilitate student growth. ✓ Ongoing assessment for interest and learning profile is also possible, if that information has not previously been collected or if the teacher has a new idea for incorporating these data into unit activities. ✓ Formative assessments, which may be formal or informal, include homework, quizzes, exit cards, journal prompts, and classroom discussions. ✓ Experts in formative assessment (for example, see Popham, 2011) suggest that formative assessments should rarely be graded because grades imply a judgment of student competence that may not be appropriate until the end of the learning cycle or until key points in a learning sequence are reached. Summative Assessment ✓ Summative assessment occurs at the end of the learning process and is typically graded. Some examples of summative assessments include tests, projects, demonstrations, presentations, and performance tasks. ✓ The purpose of summative assessment is to provide evidence of the degree to which a student has mastered the knowledge, understandings, and skills of the unit. ✓ Experts, such as Wiggins and McTighe (2011), recommend that summative assessments should be planned before instruction. Students are then taught in structured segments to practice and master the skills, knowledge, and understandings that will lead to success on the summative assessment. ✓ In addition, summative assessments can be differentiated, as long as the differentiation does not prevent teachers from accurately collecting evidence showing how well students met the targeted learning goals. Page 2 of 7 Formative Evaluation: ✓ Formative evaluation is used to monitor the learning progress of students during the period of instruction. Its main objective is to provide continuous feedback to both teacher and student concerning learning successes and failures while instruction is in process. ✓ Feedback to learners provides reinforcement of successful learning and identifies the specific learning errors that need correction. Feedback to teacher provides information for modifying instruction and for prescribing group and individual remedial work. ✓ Formative evaluation helps a teacher to ascertain the pupil-progress from time to time. At the end of a topic or unit or segment or a chapter the teacher can evaluate the learning outcomes basing on which he can modify his methods, techniques and devices of teaching to provide better learning experiences. ✓ The teacher can even modify the instructional objectives, if necessary. In other words, formative evaluation provides feedback to the teacher. The teacher can know which aspects of the learning task were mastered and which aspects were poorly or not at all mastered by pupils. Formative evaluation helps the teacher to assess the relevance and appropriateness of the learning experiences provided and to assess instantly how far the goals are being fulfilled. ✓ Thus, it aims at improvement of instruction. Formative evaluation also provides feedback to pupils. The pupil knows his learning progress from time to time. Thus, formative evaluation motivates the pupils for better learning. As such, it helps the teacher to take appropriate remedial measures. “The idea of generating information to be used for revising or improving educational practices is the core concept of formative evaluation.” ✓ It is concerned with the process of development of learning. In the sense, evaluation is concerned not only with the appraisal of the achievement but also with its improvement. Education is a continuous process. Page 3 of 7  ✓ Therefore, evaluation and development must go hand in hand. The evaluation has to take place in every possible situation or activity and throughout the period of formal education of a pupil. ✓ Cronback is the first educationist, who gave the best argument for formative evaluation. According to him, the greatest service evaluation can perform is to identify aspects of the course where education is desirable. Thus, this type of evaluation is an essential tool to provide feedback to the learners for improvement of their self-learning and to the teachers for improvement of their methodologies of teaching, nature of instructional materials, etc. ✓ It is a positive evaluation because of its attempt to create desirable learning goals and tools for achieving such goals. Formative evaluation is generally concerned with the internal agent of evaluation, like participation of the learner in the learning process. The functions of formative evaluation are: (a) Diagnosing: ✓ Diagnosing is concerned with determining the most appropriate method or instructional materials conducive to learning. (b) Placement: ✓ Placement is concerned with the finding out the position of an individual in the curriculum from which he has to start learning. (c) Monitoring: ✓ Monitoring is concerned with keeping track of the day-to- day progress of the learners and to point out changes necessary in the methods of teaching, instructional strategies, etc. Characteristics of Formative Evaluation: The characteristics of formative evaluation are as follows: a. It is an integral part of the learning process. Page 4 of 7  b. It occurs, frequently, during the course of instruction. c. Its results are made immediately known to the learners. d. It may sometime take form of teacher observation only. e. It reinforces learning of the students. f. It pinpoints difficulties being faced by a weak learner. g. Its results cannot be used for grading or placement purposes. h. It helps in modification of instructional strategies including method of teaching, immediately. i. It motivates learners, as it provides them with knowledge of progress made by them. j. It sees role of evaluation as a process. k. It is generally a teacher-made test. l. It does not take much time to be constructed. Examples: i. Monthly tests. ii. Class tests. iii. Periodical assessment. iv. Teacher’s observation, etc. Summative evaluation ✓ Summative evaluation is done at the end of a course of instruction to know to what extent the objectives previously fixed have been accomplished. In other words, it is the evaluation of pupils’ achievement at the end of a course. ✓ The main objective of the summative evaluation is to assign grades to the pupils. It indicates the degree to which the students have mastered the course Page 5 of 7  content. It helps to judge the appropriateness of instructional objectives. Summative evaluation is generally the work of standardised tests. ✓ It tries to compare one course with another. The approaches of summative evaluation imply some sort of final comparison of one item or criteria against another. It has the danger of making negative effects. ✓ This evaluation may brand a student as a failed candidate, and thus causes frustration and setback in the learning process of the candidate, which is an example of the negative effect. ✓ The traditional examinations are generally summative evaluation tools. Tests for formative evaluation are given at regular and frequent intervals during a course; whereas tests for summative evaluation are given at the end of a course or at the end of a fairly long period (say, a semester). The functions of this type of evaluation are: (a) Crediting: ✓ Crediting is concerned with collecting evidence that a learner has achieved some instructional goals in contents in respect to a defined curricular programme. (b) Certifying: ✓ Certifying is concerned with giving evidence that the learner is able to perform a job according to the previously determined standards. (c) Promoting: ✓ It is concerned with promoting pupils to next higher class. (d) Selecting: ✓ Selecting the pupils for different courses after completion of a particular course structure. Characteristics of Summative Evaluation: Page 6 of 7  a. It is terminal in nature as it comes at the end of a course of instruction (or a programme). b. It is judgemental in character in the sense that it judges the achievement of pupils. c. It views evaluation “as a product”, because its chief concern is to point out the levels of attainment. d. It cannot be based on teacher’s observations only. e. It does not pin-point difficulties faced by the learner. f. Its results can be used for placement or grading purposes. g. It reinforces learning of the students who has learnt an area. h. It may or may not motivate a learner. Sometimes, it may have negative effect. Forms of summative evaluation: 1. Traditional school and university examination, 2. Teacher-made tests, 3. Standardised tests, 4. Practical and oral tests, Page 7 of 7