The Role of Assessment in Teaching and Learning Process

      That was the seventh meeting in PETA course. On that day, I learned about the role of assessment in teaching and learning process. Actually, I have learned that topic in other chance. I learned that topic with Ibu Warih in general course of PETA subject. It was lucky for me because on that chance, I could learn same topic twice in one subject that make me get deeper understanding on that topic. Based on my understanding, Assessment was a tool to measure students’ understanding. Assessment also could be a tool to label students’ knowledge or understanding to improve teaching and learning process. There are three functions of assessment. The first was to diagnose the problem in learning process. The second was to grade the score or students’ achievement, and the third was to improve learning process.  A good assessment should have three main criteria. Those were valid, reliable, and objective. There were some steps to assess the students during the class activities. The first was pre-instruction (planning and designing the assessment), second was during the instruction (providing feedback during the assessment) and the last was post-instruction (evaluating the process to improve the teaching and learning process).

      On that day, although I could understand some parts of that topic but, I also miss some others parts. I could not understand the whole material. I missed some explanation from my lecturer. I still did not understand about the models of assessment. I knew that there were two models of assessment. Those were conventional model and standard based assessment. I did not really clear about those two things. What I remembered about those two things was both of them had the same function. Both of them also had similar ways. The ways were; the teacher designed or planned the instructional unit by determining the knowledge and skills that students should be able to learn. After that teacher do the teaching and learning process. The next way was in order to know what students have learned, so the teacher assessed the students by testing the students with particular test. I still did not really believe with my explanation about the models of assessment above. There was something missing in that explanation. That explanation was only a brief, it should be deeper. That case made me confuse and still felt in doubt about the model of assessment. To make it clear, I would ask about those things to my friends. I also would take a look to my friends’ reflection in class blog if I have been in Jakarta next. Here in my hometown, I got some difficulties to connect to the internet.

       For me, that session was interesting enough because there was an activity like jigsaw reading. The lecturer divided us into some groups and asked us to do presentation. After that, in the end of session, my lecturer sum up the material. I also got interesting on the topic that day. The topic was very useful for me as teacher candidate. Assessment was like thermometer for the doctor that could be used to measure the patients’ condition. From that thing, the doctor could know the way to nurse his patients. The doctor would know the next step to take care of his patients. According to me, that session met with my expectation before that we would learn about the role of assessment deeper though I still missed some parts of that topic. My expectation in the next session was I want to learned how to design an affective assessment that could meet three criteria, (valid, reliable and objective).