Buyung A. N Sudrajat - 4th E-Reflection

Principles of Effective Teaching and Assessment

4^th E-Reflection – Assessment

            After attending the fourth session of PETA course last week I was really interested. Since I had special class with Ibu Warih Wijayanti from Madania School as guest speaker, and I also had joint class with section E and G. From this session I have learned so many things about assessment. I have learned about what assessment is and why teacher need to do that. In my opinion assessment is some procedures and activities that done by teacher to collect information from the students about their learning. From this session I got new thing in which I have understood that assessment is not only in form of formal assessment such as test and quizzes.  This is new thing for me because in the past what I understand about assessment is just kind of test such as quiz or final exam after learning process. 

I have also learned why teacher need to do assessment. There are several aims in doing an assessment to the students. First is to provide feedback about what students have learned in learning process. Second is to designed and inform practice. The last is to identify or know what students have understood, be able to do, and what they felt in different stages of learning process. This is also a new thing for me because in the past I think that assessment is done by the teacher just for measure students understanding. By knowing this from the session it makes me broaden my mind that assessment is not a simple thing.

            In this session I have also understood how to do an effective assessment. There are several criteria of effective assessment. I have learned an effective assessment is an assessment that can record all students’ information about their learning process not only just a single test to measure their achievement. I have understood clearly about the criteria of effective assessment. An effective assessment is not only good for the teacher but must also be good for the students. There are several criteria of an effective assessment from student’s side. An effective assessment allows students to share what they have learned and understood with other; demonstrate a range of their knowledge, understanding, and skills, use variety of learning styles and some others criteria. Besides from the student’s side an effective assessment should have some criteria such as allow inform each stages in teaching and learning process, plan a response to student and teacher inquires, gather information about what conclusion that student can draw and some others criteria. What I still do not understand is how to analyze an assessment and decide whether an assessment is effective or not. To solve that problem I will read more about how to analyze an assessment and ask to my lecturer later on in the class.

            Besides that in this session I have also learned about the types of assessment. I have learned that there are two types of assessment which are formative assessment and summative assessment. Both types of assessment have same general objective which is to collect students’ information about their learning. However, each type of assessment above has special characteristics. In the class I did a group work identify and explore more about formative and summative assessment. After that we are asked to make a diagram Venn to show the similarities and differences between formative and summative assessment and after that we did gallery walk. From that activity I have understood clearly about the characteristics, similarities, and differences of formative and summative assessment. Based on my group discussion result the similarities of formative and summative assessment are to check students’ understanding, to evaluate the learning process, and to gather information for improving the teaching and learning process.

            Meanwhile, there are some differences that make each of assessment type. From my group discussion and my friends’ discussion result I have understood that summative assessment has purposes to assess what students have been learned as a climax of learning process, to provide an opportunity to assess many aspects/elements simultaneously, and to measures students understanding of the main idea of the topic and demonstrate it in towards action. Some examples of summative assessment are final semester test, performance task, and project task. On the other hand formative assessment has different purpose with summative assessment. Several purposes of formative assessment are to promote regular feedback to learning process, to provide information to plan next step of learning process whether the students have understood the materials or need more time to deepen their understanding, and to motivate low achievers students to more enthusiastic and motivated in learning. Some examples of formative assessment are quiz, journal reflection, and worksheet. For this part of lesson I do not have any part that I do not understand. I have understood clearly about those two types of assessment. However, I want to know more about how to design a good formative and summative assessment. This part is really interesting because I finally know about because I am really curious and have been familiar with those two types but I do not know in details about it.  

            The last thing that I have learned in guest lecturing from Ibu Warih was about assessment tools and strategies. I have learned that there are many types of assessment tools and each tool has its advantages and disadvantages. Some examples of assessment tools that explained by Ibu Warih are rubrics, exemplars, check-list, anecdotal records, and continuum. Since the limited time so the explanation about this part was quite fast so I did not understand fully about this. I just have understood clearly about rubrics because I have been familiar with this assessment in SSE. In order to enrich my knowledge about the assessment tools and strategies I will read again the handout that given by Ibu Warih and ask to my lecturer if I still do not understand. The last activity that we did in the class was try to do an example of English assessment in which examples of ICGSE and ICAS exam. From this activity I could understand the type of assessment and elements or skills that is focused try to be assessed and I got a reading focused question. It was interesting because I have not ever thought that in making an assessment there are many things should know.

            From all my explanation above, all activity and learning process in this session was really interesting. In this session I had a lot of activities and learned many things that was really meaningful to me as a teacher candidate. It was really meaningful to me as a teacher candidate because it is important for me to know and understand about assessment. By knowing the theory and basic knowledge about assessment it will be very useful for me later on to design and give an effective assessment to my students. Moreover, I became understand that assessment is not just a simple test to measure students’ achievement. It is really meaningful and important because as a new generation of teacher I want to change most of teacher paradigm that assessment is only an exam or quiz.

In general this session has met my expectations to know and understand assessment. By discussion with Ibu Warih while she was explaining, group work, and gallery walk I could understand all the materials. However, the time allocation for the lesson was not enough so there are some part of materials that have not been discussed. My expectation for the next meeting is to know more about assessment and its role in learning since that is the next material that will be learned. I also expect to know some part in this meeting that I still do not understand. That is my reflection for this meeting. Thank you.