Testing, assessing, teaching

1. Testing

A test, in simple terms, is a method of measuring a person’s ability; knowledge, or performance in a given domain. Let’s look at the components of this definition. A test is first a method. It is an instrument- a set of techniques, procedures, or items that requires performance on the part of test-taker. ( require desempeño por parte del tomador de la prueba.) Second, a test must measure. Some tests measure general ability, while others determine a general ability level; a quiz on recognizing correct use of definite articles measure specific knowledge.

Next, a test measures an individual’s ability; knowledge, or performance. Testers need to understand who the test-takers are. What their previous experience and background? Is the test appropriately matched to their abilities? How should test-takers interpret their scores? Finally, a test measures in given domain. In the case of proficiency test, even though the actual performance on the test involves only a sampling of skills, that domain is overall proficiency in a language-general competence in all skill of a language.

A well-constructed test is an instrument that provides an accurate measure of the test-takers’ ability within a particular domain.

2. Assessment and teaching

Assessment: It is an outgoing process, the teacher subconsciously makes an assessment of the student performance while he/she answers a question, offers a comment, tries to speak or produce something new during the class.

What is the assessment?: Assessment is a process of gathering and documenting information about the achievement, skills, abilities, and personality variables of an individual

Assessment is popular and sometimes misunderstood term in current educational practice. You might be to think of testing and assessing as synonymous terms, but they are not. Tests are prepared administrative procedures that occur at identifiable times in a curriculum when learners muster all their faculties to offer peak performance, knowing that their responses are being measured and evaluated.

Assessment, on the other hand, is an ongoing process that encompasses a much wider domain. Whenever a student responds to a question, offers a comment, or tries out a new word or structure, the teacher subconsciously makes an assessment of the student’s performance.

At the same time, during these practice activities, teachers are indeed observing students’ performance and making various evaluations of each learner: How did the performance compare to previous performance? Which aspects of the performance were better than others? Is the learner performing up to an expected potential? How does the performance compare to that of others in the same learning community? In the ideal classroom, all these observations feed into the way the teacher provides instruction to each student.

Why is assessment important?

Answer: Assessment is important, because it is the best described as an action to determine the importance, size, or value of. It is essential not only to guide he development of individual students but also to monitor and continuously improve the quality of programs, inform prospective students and their parents, and provide evidence of accountability to those who pay our way.

12. What is the difference between test and assessment?

Answer: the differences between test and assessment are;

• "test" is usually used to describe a systematic procedure for obtaining a sample of student behavior,

• while "assessment" is often used to describe a broader process of collecting information.

TEACHING:

Teaching: It provides the opportunities for learners to listen, think, takes risks, set goals, and process feedback from the coach to improve in their learning process. It also provides observation in students’ performance. OBSERVATION=TEACHER INSTRUCTION.

What is teaching? teaching is a transferred process about the lessons like the knowledge, to someone or some people, in order that they are able to get and to understand the lessons.

Who involves in teaching activities?

Answer: teacher, students, materials

What sequences in teaching activities?

Answer: the sequences in teaching activities are: (1) Before teaching activities phase (pre-active) arrange annual curriculum program, semester program, teaching planning program; (2) teaching phase (inter-active). Here it is interacting between teacher and students, student to student, group student or student as individual: (3) post-active teaching : evaluating the students’ work, make a planning for next meeting, re-evaluating teaching learning process that has directed.

Informal and formal assessment

One way to begin untangling the lexical conundrum created by distinguishing among tests, assessment, and teaching is to distinguish between informal and formal assessment.

Informal assessment can take a number of forms, starting with incidental, unplanned comments and responses, along with coaching and other impromptu feedback to the students. A good deal of teacher’s informal assessment is embedded in classroom tasks designed to elicit performance without recording results and making fixed judgment about a student’s competence.

Informal Assessment starts with incidental, unplanned comments and responses, along with coaching and other impromptu feedback to the students.

E.g. Nice job!, Good work!, etc.

INFORMAL ASSESSMENT:

- It is designed to elicit performance without recording results and making a fixed judgments about a student’s competence.

- Example: At the end of continuum are marginal comments on paper, responding to draft of an essay, advice of how to better pronounce a word, suggestion for strategy, showing how to modify a better note-taking to better remember of the lecture contents.

On the other hand, formal assessments are exercises or procedures specifically designed to tap into a storehouse of skills and knowledge. They are systematic, planned sampling techniques constructed to give teacher and students an appraisal of students’ achievement. 

it is systematic, it means that there are exercises or procedures designed to be focused on Ss achievements in terms of skills and knowledge.

Is a formal assessment always a test?

ALL TESTS ARE FORMAL ASSESSMENTS NOT ALL FORMAL ASSESSMENTS ARE TESTS

4. Formative and summative assessment

Another useful distinction to bear in mind is the function of assessment: how is the procedure to be used? Two functions are commonly identified in the literature formative and summative assessment.

Most our classroom assessment is formative assessment: evaluating students in the process of “forming” their competencies and skills with the goal of helping them to continue that growth process. The key to such formation is the delivery (by the teacher) and internalization (by the students) of appropriate feedback on performance, with an eye toward the future continuation (or formation) of learning.

it deals with the function.

evaluating students in the process of ‘forming’ their competencies and skills with the goal of helping them to continue the growth process

CHARACTERISTICS:

- delivered by the teacher

- feedbacks are internalized by the students

- eyed toward the future continuation

- informal

The goal is to monitor students learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning.

Low stakes: they have low or not point or value.

Examples:

Draw a concept map in class, submit 0ne or two sentences identifying the main point, …

Summative assessment: It evaluates SS at the end of the course and its aims is measure, or summarize what Ss have understood, how well Ss have accomplished the objectives.

Aims to measure, or summarize, what a student has grasped, and typically occurs at the end of a course or unit of instruction. A summation of what a students’ has learned implies looking back and taking stock of how well the student has accomplished objectives, but does not necessarily point the way to future progress.

The goal is to evaluate students learning at the end of an instructional unit. Low stakesexamples:

a midterm exam, a final project, a paper, a senior recital

Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced testsAnother dichotomy that is important to clarify here and that aids in sorting out common terminology in assessment is the distinction between norm-referenced and criterion-referenced testing.

In norm-referenced tests, each test-takers’ score is interpreted in relation to mean (average score), median (middle score), standard deviation (extent of variance score), and/or percentile rank. The purpose in such tests is to place test-takers along in the form of numerical score. The purpose is to place test-takers along a mathematical continuum in rank order.

Typical of these tests are standardized tests like SAT or TOEFL. These tests are intended to be administered to large audiences, with results efficiently disseminated to test takers.

They must have fixed, predetermined responses in a format that can be scored quickly at minimum expense. Money and efficiency are primary concerns in these tests.

Criterion-referenced test, on the other hand, are designed to give test-takers feedback, usually in the form of grades, on specific course or lesson objectives. Classroom tests involving the students in only one class, and connected to a curriculum, are typical of criterion-referenced testing. In a criterion-referenced test, the distribution of students’ score across a continuum may be of little concern as long as the instrument assesses appropriate objectives.

These kind of tests are designed to give test-takers feedback.

Teachers spend more time and effort but they show interest in giving useful feedback to the Ss.

QUESTIONS

1. What is teaching?

Answer: teaching is a transferred process about the lessons like the knowledge, to someone or some people, in order that they are able to get and to understand the lessons.

2. Who involves in teaching activities?

Answer: teacher, students, materials

3. What sequences in teaching activities?

Answer: the sequences in teaching activities are: (1) Before teaching activities phase (pre-active) arrange annual curriculum program, semester program, teaching planning program; (2) teaching phase (inter-active). Here it is interacting between teacher and students, student to student, group student or student as individual: (3) post-active teaching : evaluating the students’ work, make a planning for next meeting, re-evaluating teaching learning process that has directed.

4. What experiences do you have in teaching?

Answer: I have not experienced yet in teaching

5. What is the assessment?

Answer: Assessment is a process of gathering and documenting information about the achievement, skills, abilities, and personality variables of an individual

6. Why is assessment important?

Answer: Assessment is important, because it is the best described as an action to determine the importance, size, or value of.

7. What is mean by informal assessment and formal assessment?

Answer: (1) informal assessment is exercises or procedures like a number of forms, starting with incidental, unplanned comments and responses, along with coaching and other impromptu feedback to the students; (2) formal assessment is exercises or procedures specifically designed to tap into a storehouse of skills and knowledge.

8. What are formative assessment and summative assessment?

Answer: (1) formative assessment is evaluating students in the process of forming” their competences and skills with the goal of helping them to continue that growth process. (2) summative assessment is measuring, summarizing, what a student has grasped, and typically occurs at the end of a course or unit of instruction.

9. How should we assess?

Answer:

• We analyze our learning situation by outlining goals and objectives, then determining the type of learning those outcomes represent (e.g., memorizing concepts, analyzing data, synthesizing resources, etc.).

• We Make an outline pros and cons of different test item types, and helps you select appropriate item types based on our desired learning outcomes. Tips for writing effective multiple choice and true-false questions are also provided.

• We can differentiate between norm-referenced competitive tests and criterion-referenced mastery tests to help us in determining the most appropriate purpose for our assessment.

• We diagnose the test such as item analysis can help us to revise and to develop better assessments.

• Educational Technologies facilitates faculty assessment by supporting various tools to develop online or in-class tests.

10. What should we do with the information from our assessment?

Answer: we should be able to aware students about good or bad of their work, what cause it and how to repair their lacks.

11. What is a test?

Answer: a method of measuring a person’s ability; knowledge or performance in a given domain.

12. What is the difference between test and assessment?

Answer: the differences between test and assessment are;

• "test" is usually used to describe a systematic procedure for obtaining a sample of student behavior,

• while "assessment" is often used to describe a broader process of collecting information.

13. What types of test do you know? Mention and give the examples!

Answer:

There are five types of a test, at least:

• Language Aptitude Test are designed to measure capacity or general ability to learn a foreign language and ultimate success in that undertaking. Example: The modern language aptitude test, consist of five different tasks.

• Proficiency Tests are not limited to any one course curriculum, or single skill in the language; rather it tests overall ability. Example: the test of English as a foreign language (TOEFL) produced by the Educational Testing Service.

• Placement Tests usually include a sampling of the material to be covered in the various courses in a curriculum. Example: assessing comprehension and production, responding through written and oral performance, open ended limited responses, selection and gap-filling formats depending on the nature of a program and its need.

• Diagnose Tests are designed to diagnose specified aspects of a language Example : A test in pronunciation ,might diagnose the phonological features of English that are difficult for learners and should therefore become part of curriculum

• Achievement test are related directly to classroom lessons, units or even a total curriculum. Example: the course focus in on academic reading and writing the structure of the course and its objectives may be implied from the sections of the test.

14. There are some steps in preparing a test, what are they?

Answer: there are some steps in preparing a test, they are:

• Assessing clear, unambiguous objectives

• Drawing up test specifications

• Devising test tasks

• Designing multiple-choice test items

15. What is your experience in taking a test?

Answer:

I have not experience yet in taking a test. But, I have seen my teacher gave my friends and I a test. He gave us some tests that include multiple-choice, free response, performance or simulation and true or false. There is no "best" format to use; the applicability depends on the purpose and content of the test. For example, a test on a complex psychomotor task would be better served by a performance or simulation item than a true/false item.