Individual Reflection Assignment B, Investigating Issues in Assessment

By:

[name withheld on this website], Section PQR

Prof:

Jennifer LeGrandeur

Date: October 16, 2015

1.

The key things I learned about assessment from this project

Participating in this project opened my eyes to the multiple ways in which

assessment methods can be unfair to students and inappropriately burden them
with marks that do not reflect their true skills and understanding of what was
taught.

For example written examinations are unfair assessment methods for

students who do not have strong reading and writing skills. In such cases students
ability to understand the assessment questions and provide responses to them
could be negatively affected by their weak reading and writing skills, thereby
presenting an inaccurate picture of the students understanding of what was taught.

Additionally assessments that do not take into consideration the linguistic situations
of students, for example students in Alberta for whom English is a Learned
Language, are also unfair.

If a teacher assigns a task or administers an oral or

written test in which it is assumed that all students proficiency in English is at the
same level or higher, that assessment would be unfair to students who are still
learning English. That is because their test results would inevitably be affected by

their ability to understand the assignment terms and test questions and to provide
responses in English.

During this assignment I also realized for the first time, and then was embarrassed
that I had not previously considered it, that the home and out of school
environments of students can significantly impact assessment fairness.

I am a

foster parent and although on a rather vague level I had considered that my foster
childrens previous living environments had no doubt affected their ability to learn, I
had not thought about the issue with focus or at any length.

I have cared for two foster children whose caregivers, prior to the children coming
into my care, only sent the children to school for one day out of every five. I cannot
imagine that any assessment in which the children participated in those
circumstances would have been fair to them, considering that they did not
participate in four fifths of classroom activities. It was not the childrens decision to
attend school for only a fraction of the time therefore how could it have been fair for
their teachers to, as I anticipate was the case, assign tasks and administer tests to
them on the same terms as offered to their classmates?

The answer of course is that it would not have been fair. Two bright and willing
students, living through no fault of their own in a situation in which they were
regularly kept out of school, would have been placed in situations of stress and no
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doubt also embarrassment and vulnerability as they faced unfair assessment

situations.

I should note for the sake of completeness that, sure enough, the children to whom I
refer were each held back a year in school twice. They failed two years in school,
one of them told me, bitterness and shame in her voice. Although ultimately both
children were permitted to skip a grade and thus regain some ground, being held
back two times inflicted obvious harm on them. They are bright teenagers who have
long considered themselves to be academic failures.
images

were

contributed

to

by

the

decisions

Their sorry academic selfof

possibly

overwhelmed,

unimaginative, and/or poorly trained teachers or perhaps the well-intentioned but

misguided decisions of their school principals.

2.

The aspects of the research I completed for this project that

challenge/affirm my understandings about assessment

I completed the portions of this project related to the fairness in assessment

resources available to teachers. To be candid I was struck by how few fairness in
assessment resources appear to exist, at least beyond academic articles. I felt a
shiver go down my spine as I prepared my section of my groups presentation. I
thought about how may teachers and education students might not be, as I have
been in my Professional Semester I program, taught about fairness in assessment
and encouraged to explore the resources available.

As I searched for fairness related resources I was disappointed by their paucity.

How do teachers feel, I wondered, when they are confronted by assessment fairness
challenges but do not have resources readily available to assist them? I wondered
how such teachers would assess their students fairly and how they would respond
to students and parents who, unhappy with assessment results, were alleging
unfairness.

I am not sure of the cause of the scarcity of accessible, easy to use assessment
fairness resources. Perhaps it is a reflection of recent trends in teaching or
academics reluctance to create easy to use materials, or perhaps I was looking in
the wrong places. However I anticipate that busy teachers, myself included, are not
going to reach for online academic databases when faced with assessment fairness
challenges.

Surely there must be other resources available? Or perhaps this is an area of inquiry
that future teachers like me should explore, even just on an informal basis, in order
to help one another? I could see myself and a few colleagues perhaps creating a 20
to 30-paged, stapled together pamphlet, a labour of love and a modest gift to fellow
teachers. An easy to use, graphics heavy, assessment fairness manual would be
helpful. I envision the small, battered pamphlet sitting on teachers desks, dog
eared and coffee stained, perhaps distributed to them free of charge every few
years by some altruistic non-profit organization.
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In any event, I wish there were more resources available to help teachers to fairly
assess students.

If nothing else, my experience with this project will hopefully

remind me to consider assessment fairness at every stage of my teaching career.

For example, I hope that as a teacher I would avoid holding back students whose
caregivers did not send them to school for four days out of five. I hope that as an
alternative I would for example give such students take-home work packets, pens,
and pencils, and ask the students complete them at home if possible, and then
bring them back to me.

I hope I would also remember that perhaps the students at home circumstances
would not permit them to complete their work there. For example, perhaps there
would not be enough peace and quiet at home for them to work. If that turned out
to be the case then I would hopefully put on my thinking cap again and continue to
explore other approaches to the challenge.

I become upset as I think that teachers held back my foster children not once, but
twice, essentially because of the addictions struggles and parenting choices of their
previous caregivers. My upset can transform into anger however that may be unfair

of me. After all, who knows what funding issues and other challenges were present
in the childrens school environments during the years in question?

3.

The value of this learning for the ongoing development of my

personal theory of teaching and learning

Everything I said in the preceding sections applies to this section, also. My review
of the issue of fairness in assessment has hopefully caused me to become more
sensitive to the impact of fairness in assessment, particularly the negative impact of
unfair assessment upon students.

My theory of teaching and learning has from the beginning included the idea that
students have different strengths and that they enter the classroom with different
weaknesses and challenges. By causing me to examine the impact that my
assessment choices will have on students, this assignment has opened my eyes to
my role as a potential change agent within the school system. It has also caused
me to consider becoming involved in teacher consultation committees related to
assessment and other issues, via the Alberta Teachers Association.

I enjoy thinking that I may have students placed into my future classrooms who, for
the entirety of their school careers, have unfairly been labelled as weak learners or
learning challenged. I enjoy thinking that perhaps my assessment fairness

sensitivity will cause me to pause and employ unorthodox or infrequently used

assessment methods as needed. Perhaps that in turn will help those students to
perform well during assessment tasks. How many students, I wonder, are unfairly
labelled as weak when in fact they have learned as much as, and possibly more
than, their A and B earning colleagues?

I hope that as a teacher I will be progressive in my approach to assessment. I would

like to approach every student as a unique individual, refusing to apply labels and
thereby limit students confidence, opportunities, and potential. Instead, and
hopefully my evolving teaching and learning theory will reflect this, I would like
fairness to be my compass as I navigate the unpredictable waters of the
assessment sea.

4.

One thing about this assignment you should know

As I participated in this assignment I was struck by how poorly the issue of fairness
in assessment was addressed during my years in school.

I began attending

university for my undergraduate degree in 1993. That was a long time ago and I
remember that at that time it was unusual for professors to use formative
assessment.

It was also rare for them to permit summative assessment with

anything other than a 100 percent examination or 100 per cent paper, or perhaps a
differently weighted combination of the two.

I recall that in university I performed far better in paper courses, where my grades
were determined exclusively by written essay output, than I did in courses in which I
participated in traditional written examinations. I have always performed better
when I could write, my imagination was permitted to wander, and my time was not
limited. By contrast I was miserable when I had to sit, straitjacketed by the clock,
and answer set questions during a set time period using, of all things, my terrible
handwriting. I have some fairly agonized final exam memories from the early 1990s
involving me, small desks, cinderblock gymnasium walls, and apparently because
this was The Best Way to Do Things no snacks or music. (?!)

So, one thing about my groups assignment that you should know is that while it
dredged up unpleasant memories for me, it has caused me to feel good about how I
will teach and evaluate my future students. I hope the legacy of this assignment
will be my sensitive and fair assessment of hundreds of Southern Albertan students
in the three decades to come. If I begin to teach high school when I leave this
program in December 2016, and if I teach just 100 students per year, then over the
next 30 years I will teach 3,000 students. I will hopefully assess those students with
sensitivity and fairness, and all because of this assignment and this course. Given
the impact of assessment on students academic options, confidence, and selfimage, that is a pretty exciting goal for me. Thank you for this assignment.