7th Reflection

Assessment

Assessment is not a new thing from me. A lot of things come in mind when people, especially students, hear this word. For students, it is a frightening thing. Before, assessment was an ordinary thing for me. When I was in primary school, I used to make it as a simple and common thing but since my father was so strict about my academic things he used to force me to study hard and that was make me so stress. Day by day through my school life, I realize that assessment is very important to do. In my opinion, assessment helps me to know my ability in academic and it also helps me to improve my study skill. Whenever I get bad score, I can do evaluation and improve my learning strategy to get better score. Besides, sometimes assessment can engage and motivate me to learn because I have goals to reach such get presents from teacher and parents, I also can make my parents, especially my father, do not angry to me. May be when people hear this statement they will think that I am such a “fearful” child who afraid being punished by the parents, but it is a satisfaction for me to see my parents proud of me because I succeed in my assessment.

It was a funny thing when I heard some of my classmates’ feeling when they hear or think about assessment. Some said they were afraid, nervous, and some said they did not feel anything. I satisfied from last session that finally the lecturer discussed more about assessment. I have discussed this topic with a guest lecturer few weeks ago but from this session I get deeper understanding about assessment. Actually, I did not expect anything since I did not know what topic that my friends and I am going discuss this session in the classroom, but as always, the lecturer has many things to share and it always inspiring too. It was an interesting session because I have learned a lot of important things about assessment. We discussed what assessment is, what effective assessment likes, the elements and domain of assessment, models of assessment, until the effect of assessment. The session really opened my eyes and my understanding that as a teacher (candidate) I must be serious in doing assessment if it is not then it will affect serious things for me, for school, and worse-for my students.

In this reflection I cannot explain all and one by one what I have learned from last meeting but I try to conclude or summarize what I have learned in this reflection. Here I try to explain from my perspective when I put myself as a teacher. As a teacher, assessment is one of a crucial thing that needs serious attention. Before doing and giving assessment, teacher needs to know and understand the elements and criteria of the effective assessment such as the purpose of assessing students, the measurement, evaluation, and the use. Teacher also has to remember the domain of assessment that is going to assess: cognitive, affective, and psycomotoric. After teacher ready with those things, then teacher will be able to decide the models of assessment that will be used. There are two models of assessment: conventional and standard based. Each of models has it strength and weaknesses and it can be used based on the needs and situation. From the session, I have learned that the effective one is the standard based because it has planned instructional unit (the conventional also has this step), it has more various strategies, and teacher has more accurate result rather than use the conventional one since the conventional one is lack of connection between instruction and assessment. And now I know that my previous teachers always do was the conventional one because they never have various strategies and instruction, the types of tests only multiple choices, short answer essays, and constructed response. And if I may combine what I have learned from Language Teaching Methodologies (LTM), a good assessment should be valid, reliable, and consistent.

Actually, I understand clearly all the part and topic that was being discussed in this session. Especially, when we discussed about three things that teacher should pay attention in giving assessment and feedback such as ego-involvement, task involvement, and extrinsic motivation of students that can affect students’ motivation. I really liked this part. When I discussed about this, I remembered and reflected to my previous schools started from primary until senior high level. If I could turn back the time, I would say to my teachers that they should know this, that, here, and so on and so forth before and after do the assessment and look over their way in giving feedback. Unfortunately I cannot but I am lucky I know these all by now so I will do better than they have done. The only thing that I cannot clearly understand in that time was about the difference between assessment and evaluation. But now it is not a big deal for me since I have asked to my friends and read more about this.

Over all, I would like to say that I am grateful, happy, and satisfy with this meeting. I will more curious, learn more and apply more from all the topics that we have discussed in PETA course. Actually, I feel a little sad since this is my last reflection but I try to keep writing reflection though it will not be posted in the class blog. My expectation for next meeting that I can find more interesting, precious and surprising things to bring in the future. For the short term expectation is I can finish this course with satisfying mark. Thank you Ms.Ine for being and bring inspiration for me. Hopefully I can be like you in the future who always open students’ mind after the session. And for me, you are one of effective teachers with effective and wonderful teaching in the classroom.

Raphita Lestari

2011120058