The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the interest in what the research says about reading instruction. Assessing fluency is currently a hot topic among educators. Fluency is one aspect of reading proficiency and it seems important for reading comprehension according to the 2000 NRP report. As an educator, it seems that much of our instructional efforts are focused on fluency assessment and fluency development. Although fluency is an important component of reading development, I think our efforts are misguided by assessing speed in the name of fluency. I am currently administering AIMSweb assessment to the students in my class. I think fluency and the assessments of it are being overemphasized. It seems that of the research that has been presented, there is a lot about reading development that we don't know. I understand that it is important that schools have procedures in place to track development in beginning readers so that instruction may be modified. Our school used the DIBELS assessments last year, then switched to AIMSweb this year. Both assessments have fall, winter and spring testing periods and seem to be much alike. I think speed rather than fluency is being measured. According to an NRP member (Samuels, 2006), speed of response is something different from fluency. According to the former editor of a premier experimental research journal report, DIBELS mis-predicts reading performance and is primarily a measure of who reads with little regard to comprehension (Pressley, Hilden, & Shankland, 2005). I am primarily focusing on these assessments because they are currently the driving force behind the instruction. Much time is allocated to the administration and analyzation of the results. It guides the kind of instruction that we give. I also fail to see proof that the intervention programs are bringing about the expected growth. I think one way to develop reading competency is through extensive and diverse reading. Reading can be increased in our classrooms by increasing voluntary reading, easy access to interesting books, student choice of what to read, daily teacher read-alouds, and other various strategies for "blessing books" (Trelease, 2001). Perhaps devoting more instructional time to reading activites that students are interested in rather than administering assessments would help our struggling readers.
I think we have to trace back to the nature of assessment. What are all these assessments about? They are more than testing. For learners, assessment may serve as a ruler to self-examine how well they learn and what are the things they are not mastered yet and still need to improve. For instructors, assessment should be seen as a tool to check learners’ performance and examine whether the instructional strategies and approaches are used effectively or not. Overall, instructional assessment is to evaluate what has been accomplished and what else needs to be improved and remedied. However, nowadays the main purpose of assessment seems to be misinterpreted to some degree. It seems to me that scores matter more than how much learners learn and what can be done to intervene. As a result, educators and learners neglect why they are teaching and learning respectively. Just like what Larna mentioned that to assess fluency is almost equal to assessing the speed. The nature of assessment has been misguided. I also agree with those activities she mentioned to help learners be better readers. To be consistent with the principles of UDL, learners should be “offered choices of content” (Rose & Meyer, 2002). That is to say, learners should not be tied to the concept that learning to be assessed; instead, they are also learning to appreciate different aspects such as social and cultural aspects (Gillet, et al., 2008). Most importantly, that increases their enthusiasm.
I think that I might be looking at the post differently than how the other two above me have. The way that I read and interrupted is, by weighing our cows we are able to assess them. We can tell whether or not the cow has gained weight or lost weight. This will control how we make our next step. Do we give the cow more to eat, stay the same, or back off and give less food. This is the same as with our students. By having assessment, we are measuring/ weighing students. We are seeing how they have developed since the last time we have assessed them. This can show us if we need to re-teach an idea, or have more supports with our classroom or student in particular. If what we are doing is working, and if we can back-off gradually taking away some of those supports.
I interpreted the the cow metaphor much like Erin did. We first weigh the cow, or assess the child. From there, the cow gets bigger and grows, just like the child's knowledge. We must look at what is happening to the cow to make it grow... or what is happening to the student when it acquires information. We must see food, (or technique), the cow, (or child), responds best to. After we see improvement in the cow (or child), we must weigh them again to see the exact change that was made. After the assessment we can decide whether or not what we are doing is aiding in growth, or if maybe we should try something different to create a more dramatic change.
My view on this blog is very similar as those above. Assessment has been created for a reason, to be able to determine what level that student is currently achieving at, what they have completed in the past and the areas they might be struggling, that way the teacher can change the curriculum and or provide more supports to get that individual the assistance they need. When it comes to weighing the cow, the student is the cow. On the first day of school when they walk into the class room, we as teachers need to assess them. Whether it be formally or informally we need to see where they stand, what skills they have, and what areas they are going to struggle in. Most teachers spend their first days doing introductions when they are missing out on the importance of assessing their students. When it comes to the cow growing, these are the students achieving their goals, making progress and being able to call home at the end of the week and explain to a parent how great their child did on their last spelling exam. Without assessment in the beginning, the supports would not have been available for those students, and they would not have been as likely to gain as the school year progressed.
As a special education teacher, I may see assessment in a different light than teachers that work with regularly developing students. I agree with the posts that assessments should help guide instruction and that they can provide valuable information for our students to help monitor their progress, but the difficulty is that I don't think that many students are involved in this process. I don't think that many students, in early elementary and even high school play a very active role in the educational process. I can't say that I did until college. So, in the sense of self-monitoring progress, I don't think many students benefit from assessments.
I think that assessments, often times, get used for other reasons, such as seperating out high and low performers, not as a tool to help guide instruction for the classroom teacher.
To get back to the "cow" how much of his growth can we attribute to the educational process and how much could be due to other factors, such as maturation? I look at my almost 4-year old and think about the assessment that she completed to enter pre-K and wonder how much she learned over the last year and how much of that she would know now because she is 4, not 3.
To me this comment holds the same feeling as those posted. In schools, it is always assumed that if you test a child, that the child is magically supposed to be able to work better. It is a completely ridiculous theory.
According to Wikipedia, "Educational assessment is the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, the institution, or the educational system as a whole."
I believe, as well, that assessment is a very useful tool for instructors to measure the progress of their students. We as educators need to know the strengths and weaknesses of our students. Assessment allows us to use scaffolding at the appropriate level with students. Those who are achieving high in certain areas can benefit from peer teaching others within the classroom, as well as allowing teachers to work more with struggling students.
I agree with an above post on the view that certain classrooms and/or schools are focusing excessively on assessment. In this case, I feel as though these students are missing out on the learning and understanding process.
I have not yet had the opportunity to conduct my own classroom. I do, however, observe a 6th grade special needs class on Mondays. I feel as though this class may be over assessed without the extra time spent learning. They seem to have short lessons, while spending the majority of class time copying sentences from worksheets and filling in answers. Only during Social Studies and Science is there any reading aloud between the classmates, or so it seems. The students are to do all work during class, and there is never any homework. Therefore, learning time seems to be used strictly to assess.
Furthermore, if we weigh the cow it will grow, but we have to take time out to get the cow off the scale in order to feed it first.
Wikipedia Link for Educational Assessment Definition- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assessment
If you are looking at only the weight of a cow, then weighting is enough. When you make the cow a child this changes this idea. It is important to consider the reason and what you are assessing. There are several different assessments to assess different things. In order to get an accurate "picture" of the whole student assessment needs to be varied and address other skills (other than phonics). When I think of cows I think of the current push to beat the alphabetic principle (which includes phonics and phonological awareness, etc.). It seems that this is all there is to assess when it comes to young children and their reading. Best practices in literacy instruction is not only phonics and therefore should not be the sole focus of assessment that is used to drive instruction. It is, as with universal design, these assessment results that are driving the instruction. Unfortunately, the focus appears to be very narrow. "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." -Source unknown.
Just because you weigh the cow does not mean it will grow. It's how you treat the cow prior to weighing it. If you take care of the cows needs and nurture it properly, it will essentially grow. The same concept with students, if you assess them without teaching, you will see little progress. I teach special education kg-2 grade and I use formal and informal assessements thorughout the year. It is the only way for me to messure growth/prgress or lack there of. With these assessments I am able to guide my instruction to meet the needs of each student.
If we weigh a cow over and over, why is it gaining weight. It does not gain weight if we do not give it anything. But if in between the weighings, we give the cow some food, it will actually gain weight. I believe this is the same with assessing our students. What we tend to do is just assess and assess. We do not tend to "feed" them between the assessments. That way, they do not gain anything. Yet, if we were to add "food" to them everyday, they would gain a lot of knowledge before being assessed. The "food" would be the information that they are assessed on. As long as we give them that, they will grow and the assessments would show their growth. Then with being able to assess them, the teachers know where to start out or where to move on with their instruction. They are able to find the places where the students need the information and give them that in ways they can understand and learn. If the students understand what they are taught and can apply it, they will do better on their assessments than if they were just tested over and over without any "food" in the middle.
Assessment in relation to weighing a cow is checking to see if what we have been feeding the cow and how we've been nurturing the cow is causing the cow to show any sign of growth. In our classrooms, we need to focus on providing quality instruction to our students and meeting their individual needs. We must also be aware not only of their academic needs, but see the child where he/she is. There may be emotional and physical needs that must be met for that child also. The basic needs must be met in order to be able to teach academic skills. Assessing the child's academic skills help us to see where we need to begin instruction with that child. Some children may need to focus on phonemic awareness, whereas others are ready to begin working on skills such as prediction. There will always be a wide range of reading levels in the classroom. We, as teachers, must assess those needs and build from there. But, as we are doing that, we must remember to see the child as a being with other needs besides just learning academics.
As the others above me have stated I took the metaphor as assessment acting as the weighing of the cow. When we assess our "cows" we weigh how well they are doing in whatever it is we are assessing them about. If they are being underfed at school we can bulk up their diet and try our hardest to stop their hunger. The assessment can also help the students who are being given too much food. These students may be able to be assessed and taken out of the situation they are being taught in an placed in another least restrictive enviroment because of the help they were given that has helped them enough.
I can see this quote being interpreted in many different ways, but I see the metaphor a bit differently in that if we weigh the cow the cow will grow meaning that all students show progress or growth over time if assessed or weighed in the same fashion over the course of their formal education. To me this points out the problem with our current practices in assessment being that they are biased and usually do not provide relevant information about the student so the teacher can not plan and implement appropriate instruction because they lack meaningful information regarding the student's ability level across a variety of domains. This day in age, school is not just about reading, writing, and arithmetic, but rather preparing students for their future and to generalize information across multiple settings and topics. Our goal is to prepare these student's for the future. Special Education especially should be geared toward the individual and focus on relevant aspects that will help them develop in areas relevant to them personally. Teachers cannot appropriately plan nor deliver instruction if they do not have meaningful information on that particular student. That is why we need multiple forms of assessment both formal and informal to get as much information to best provide for our students. This goes hand in hand with our class readings as well being that they highlighted flaws in our assessment procedures as well as pointed out many areas which were overlooked by the very agency that is suppose to best educate people on reading instruction. So in essence, it is true that if you weigh a cow it will grow, but the question to ask is what if we the cow in a variety of different ways focusing on more than just weight, and maybe we will be able to determine what is causing that cow to grow and what we could do to help it grow.
When I think about weighing the cow and how it relates to students I think about the nourishment or food that is being given to them. We teach a kid a lesson, practice then test them over the material but if the kid does not get it then what? Most teachers move on, never to re-assess or even think about reteaching. The student then gets passed on from grade to grade, teacher to teacher making slow progress but never being inspired to be at the success that is possible. I know it's every teacher's dream to change this but it is so ironic to think about when assessing kids. Weighing the cow should reflect us to think about what is growing, and not growing for the student as they go through school. One assessment method we have all heard about is standardized testing that assesses students, well I think we should look at the assessment methods to better determine success.
I think of the students as being the cow and when we assess them, we are "weighing them" to see how much they have grown or learned. When we assess them and see that they have not shown improvement or "grown" then that tells us that we need to modify our instruction to help meet the needs of that particular student. Not all of our students are going to learn or grow at the same rate, so it is important for us to assess or "weigh" them to make sure all of our students (cows) are growing. I feel that it is important to (weigh the cow) or assess the students from the beginning, so as a teacher you are aware of all the different needs of the learners in your classroom. Assessment is an ongoing process which is a great way to show what each student has learned throughout the entire year. In terms of the state tests, I do not think that this is a valid way to assess your students, because some students are poor test takers, and it does not show the large growth of improvement made by the student. If you keep assessments through out the entire year, you may find that you student is actually showing improvement in a specific subject even if their test scores show differently. I believe that assessment is a critical piece to designing your instruction. If your cows are not growing, then that shows you that you may need to do something differently to insure that your cows grow.
If I understand the anology correctly? We are refering that a student is a cow and we wiegh this cow by giving assessments on pior knowledge and thier future knowledge. I can see how the use of the cow terminology comes into affect. The cow wonders around a pasture grazing looking for something new, much like how a student wonders around a school looking for new information.So by testing these cattle hopefully it will inprove the cow's success.
Some assume if we weigh the cow the cow will grow. However not all teachers/administrators take into account what should be down to promote the growth. For instance, throughout my pre-service observations I witnessed countless "cram weeks" prior to ISAT. These teachers were teaching to the test a few weeks prior - thus hoping that this prep week would provide enough growth to show improvement within the actual assessment. Some schools even go as far as to have after school tutoring a month before ISAT to help those Teir 3 and Teir 2 kids get an extra boost prior to the test. This idea of cramming doesn't work - in many instances students feel overwhelmed and as Anne said some students are just poor test takers. It is unfair to paint a picture of a child based off of one instance. As many have said above, assessment is used for entirely the wrong purposes today. Many teachers do not take the data from their assessments and alter their instruction according to that individual classes needs. After all we have to assess - why not do it to benefit the students and ourselves?
The analogy of the cow being the student and the weighing being the assessment is accurate but I don't believe that weighing the cow will necessarily make the cow grow. It seems to me that many current assessments don't provide the teacher with accurate results and do very little to provide an accurate description of areas of remediation for that student. One has to look no further than AIMSWEB a popular assessment for RTI used by the majority of schools in this area (mainly because the state offers the program for free). AIMSWEB provides the teacher with assessments for tiers 1,2, and 3 but does very little to provide useful results for the teacher. The teacher may know that there student missed certain problems but are unaware of what problems and what areas need to be remediated. Assessments that are only formal do not provide the teacher with accurate results and fail to show the true magnitude of the student's current skill level. Assessments need to be both formal and informal and teachers need to understand and learn how to properly assess their students from both formal and informal assessments. SO going back to the analogy if we weigh the cow the cow will grow but only if we are using an accurate scale and we understand how to properly read that scale. Now that is still not to say that the cow will grow just because we know how to properly weigh the cow and use the scale. The cow must be provided with food and nourishment if the cow is to grow. Meaning the teacher must use both formal and informal assessments and properly read the results of these assessments and apply these results to their teaching of the necessary skills to the student. The discipline of teaching reading stipulates that a balanced approach works best, so when assessing students a balanced approach should be used with both formal and informal assessments. Teachers need to consider all factors when assessing students in order to determine the most accurate results from assessments.
The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in the interest in what the research says about reading instruction. Assessing fluency is currently a hot topic among educators. Fluency is one aspect of reading proficiency and it seems important for reading comprehension according to the 2000 NRP report. As an educator, it seems that much of our instructional efforts are focused on fluency assessment and fluency development. Although fluency is an important component of reading development, I think our efforts are misguided by assessing speed in the name of fluency. I am currently administering AIMSweb assessment to the students in my class. I think fluency and the assessments of it are being overemphasized. It seems that of the research that has been presented, there is a lot about reading development that we don't know. I understand that it is important that schools have procedures in place to track development in beginning readers so that instruction may be modified. Our school used the DIBELS assessments last year, then switched to AIMSweb this year. Both assessments have fall, winter and spring testing periods and seem to be much alike. I think speed rather than fluency is being measured. According to an NRP member (Samuels, 2006), speed of response is something different from fluency. According to the former editor of a premier experimental research journal report, DIBELS mis-predicts reading performance and is primarily a measure of who reads with little regard to comprehension (Pressley, Hilden, & Shankland, 2005).
ReplyDeleteI am primarily focusing on these assessments because they are currently the driving force behind the instruction. Much time is allocated to the administration and analyzation of the results. It guides the kind of instruction that we give. I also fail to see proof that the intervention programs are bringing about the expected growth.
I think one way to develop reading competency is through extensive and diverse reading. Reading can be increased in our classrooms by increasing voluntary reading, easy access to interesting books, student choice of what to read, daily teacher read-alouds, and other various strategies for "blessing books" (Trelease, 2001). Perhaps devoting more instructional time to reading activites that students are interested in rather than administering assessments would help our struggling readers.
I think we have to trace back to the nature of assessment. What are all these assessments about? They are more than testing. For learners, assessment may serve as a ruler to self-examine how well they learn and what are the things they are not mastered yet and still need to improve. For instructors, assessment should be seen as a tool to check learners’ performance and examine whether the instructional strategies and approaches are used effectively or not. Overall, instructional assessment is to evaluate what has been accomplished and what else needs to be improved and remedied. However, nowadays the main purpose of assessment seems to be misinterpreted to some degree. It seems to me that scores matter more than how much learners learn and what can be done to intervene. As a result, educators and learners neglect why they are teaching and learning respectively. Just like what Larna mentioned that to assess fluency is almost equal to assessing the speed. The nature of assessment has been misguided. I also agree with those activities she mentioned to help learners be better readers. To be consistent with the principles of UDL, learners should be “offered choices of content” (Rose & Meyer, 2002). That is to say, learners should not be tied to the concept that learning to be assessed; instead, they are also learning to appreciate different aspects such as social and cultural aspects (Gillet, et al., 2008). Most importantly, that increases their enthusiasm.
ReplyDeleteI think that I might be looking at the post differently than how the other two above me have. The way that I read and interrupted is, by weighing our cows we are able to assess them. We can tell whether or not the cow has gained weight or lost weight. This will control how we make our next step. Do we give the cow more to eat, stay the same, or back off and give less food. This is the same as with our students. By having assessment, we are measuring/ weighing students. We are seeing how they have developed since the last time we have assessed them. This can show us if we need to re-teach an idea, or have more supports with our classroom or student in particular. If what we are doing is working, and if we can back-off gradually taking away some of those supports.
ReplyDeleteI interpreted the the cow metaphor much like Erin did. We first weigh the cow, or assess the child. From there, the cow gets bigger and grows, just like the child's knowledge. We must look at what is happening to the cow to make it grow... or what is happening to the student when it acquires information. We must see food, (or technique), the cow, (or child), responds best to. After we see improvement in the cow (or child), we must weigh them again to see the exact change that was made. After the assessment we can decide whether or not what we are doing is aiding in growth, or if maybe we should try something different to create a more dramatic change.
ReplyDeleteMy view on this blog is very similar as those above. Assessment has been created for a reason, to be able to determine what level that student is currently achieving at, what they have completed in the past and the areas they might be struggling, that way the teacher can change the curriculum and or provide more supports to get that individual the assistance they need. When it comes to weighing the cow, the student is the cow. On the first day of school when they walk into the class room, we as teachers need to assess them. Whether it be formally or informally we need to see where they stand, what skills they have, and what areas they are going to struggle in. Most teachers spend their first days doing introductions when they are missing out on the importance of assessing their students. When it comes to the cow growing, these are the students achieving their goals, making progress and being able to call home at the end of the week and explain to a parent how great their child did on their last spelling exam. Without assessment in the beginning, the supports would not have been available for those students, and they would not have been as likely to gain as the school year progressed.
ReplyDeleteAs a special education teacher, I may see assessment in a different light than teachers that work with regularly developing students. I agree with the posts that assessments should help guide instruction and that they can provide valuable information for our students to help monitor their progress, but the difficulty is that I don't think that many students are involved in this process. I don't think that many students, in early elementary and even high school play a very active role in the educational process. I can't say that I did until college. So, in the sense of self-monitoring progress, I don't think many students benefit from assessments.
ReplyDeleteI think that assessments, often times, get used for other reasons, such as seperating out high and low performers, not as a tool to help guide instruction for the classroom teacher.
To get back to the "cow" how much of his growth can we attribute to the educational process and how much could be due to other factors, such as maturation? I look at my almost 4-year old and think about the assessment that she completed to enter pre-K and wonder how much she learned over the last year and how much of that she would know now because she is 4, not 3.
To me this comment holds the same feeling as those posted. In schools, it is always assumed that if you test a child, that the child is magically supposed to be able to work better. It is a completely ridiculous theory.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Wikipedia, "Educational assessment is the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, the institution, or the educational system as a whole."
ReplyDeleteI believe, as well, that assessment is a very useful tool for instructors to measure the progress of their students. We as educators need to know the strengths and weaknesses of our students. Assessment allows us to use scaffolding at the appropriate level with students. Those who are achieving high in certain areas can benefit from peer teaching others within the classroom, as well as allowing teachers to work more with struggling students.
I agree with an above post on the view that certain classrooms and/or schools are focusing excessively on assessment. In this case, I feel as though these students are missing out on the learning and understanding process.
I have not yet had the opportunity to conduct my own classroom. I do, however, observe a 6th grade special needs class on Mondays. I feel as though this class may be over assessed without the extra time spent learning. They seem to have short lessons, while spending the majority of class time copying sentences from worksheets and filling in answers. Only during Social Studies and Science is there any reading aloud between the classmates, or so it seems. The students are to do all work during class, and there is never any homework. Therefore, learning time seems to be used strictly to assess.
Furthermore, if we weigh the cow it will grow, but we have to take time out to get the cow off the scale in order to feed it first.
Wikipedia Link for Educational Assessment Definition- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assessment
If you are looking at only the weight of a cow, then weighting is enough. When you make the cow a child this changes this idea. It is important to consider the reason and what you are assessing. There are several different assessments to assess different things. In order to get an accurate "picture" of the whole student assessment needs to be varied and address other skills (other than phonics). When I think of cows I think of the current push to beat the alphabetic principle (which includes phonics and phonological awareness, etc.). It seems that this is all there is to assess when it comes to young children and their reading. Best practices in literacy instruction is not only phonics and therefore should not be the sole focus of assessment that is used to drive instruction. It is, as with universal design, these assessment results that are driving the instruction. Unfortunately, the focus appears to be very narrow. "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." -Source unknown.
ReplyDeleteJust because you weigh the cow does not mean it will grow. It's how you treat the cow prior to weighing it. If you take care of the cows needs and nurture it properly, it will essentially grow. The same concept with students, if you assess them without teaching, you will see little progress. I teach special education kg-2 grade and I use formal and informal assessements thorughout the year. It is the only way for me to messure growth/prgress or lack there of. With these assessments I am able to guide my instruction to meet the needs of each student.
ReplyDeleteIf we weigh a cow over and over, why is it gaining weight. It does not gain weight if we do not give it anything. But if in between the weighings, we give the cow some food, it will actually gain weight.
ReplyDeleteI believe this is the same with assessing our students. What we tend to do is just assess and assess. We do not tend to "feed" them between the assessments. That way, they do not gain anything. Yet, if we were to add "food" to them everyday, they would gain a lot of knowledge before being assessed. The "food" would be the information that they are assessed on. As long as we give them that, they will grow and the assessments would show their growth.
Then with being able to assess them, the teachers know where to start out or where to move on with their instruction. They are able to find the places where the students need the information and give them that in ways they can understand and learn. If the students understand what they are taught and can apply it, they will do better on their assessments than if they were just tested over and over without any "food" in the middle.
Assessment in relation to weighing a cow is checking to see if what we have been feeding the cow and how we've been nurturing the cow is causing the cow to show any sign of growth. In our classrooms, we need to focus on providing quality instruction to our students and meeting their individual needs. We must also be aware not only of their academic needs, but see the child where he/she is. There may be emotional and physical needs that must be met for that child also. The basic needs must be met in order to be able to teach academic skills. Assessing the child's academic skills help us to see where we need to begin instruction with that child. Some children may need to focus on phonemic awareness, whereas others are ready to begin working on skills such as prediction. There will always be a wide range of reading levels in the classroom. We, as teachers, must assess those needs and build from there. But, as we are doing that, we must remember to see the child as a being with other needs besides just learning academics.
ReplyDeleteAs the others above me have stated I took the metaphor as assessment acting as the weighing of the cow. When we assess our "cows" we weigh how well they are doing in whatever it is we are assessing them about. If they are being underfed at school we can bulk up their diet and try our hardest to stop their hunger. The assessment can also help the students who are being given too much food. These students may be able to be assessed and taken out of the situation they are being taught in an placed in another least restrictive enviroment because of the help they were given that has helped them enough.
ReplyDeleteI can see this quote being interpreted in many different ways, but I see the metaphor a bit differently in that if we weigh the cow the cow will grow meaning that all students show progress or growth over time if assessed or weighed in the same fashion over the course of their formal education. To me this points out the problem with our current practices in assessment being that they are biased and usually do not provide relevant information about the student so the teacher can not plan and implement appropriate instruction because they lack meaningful information regarding the student's ability level across a variety of domains. This day in age, school is not just about reading, writing, and arithmetic, but rather preparing students for their future and to generalize information across multiple settings and topics. Our goal is to prepare these student's for the future. Special Education especially should be geared toward the individual and focus on relevant aspects that will help them develop in areas relevant to them personally. Teachers cannot appropriately plan nor deliver instruction if they do not have meaningful information on that particular student. That is why we need multiple forms of assessment both formal and informal to get as much information to best provide for our students. This goes hand in hand with our class readings as well being that they highlighted flaws in our assessment procedures as well as pointed out many areas which were overlooked by the very agency that is suppose to best educate people on reading instruction. So in essence, it is true that if you weigh a cow it will grow, but the question to ask is what if we the cow in a variety of different ways focusing on more than just weight, and maybe we will be able to determine what is causing that cow to grow and what we could do to help it grow.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think about weighing the cow and how it relates to students I think about the nourishment or food that is being given to them. We teach a kid a lesson, practice then test them over the material but if the kid does not get it then what? Most teachers move on, never to re-assess or even think about reteaching. The student then gets passed on from grade to grade, teacher to teacher making slow progress but never being inspired to be at the success that is possible. I know it's every teacher's dream to change this but it is so ironic to think about when assessing kids. Weighing the cow should reflect us to think about what is growing, and not growing for the student as they go through school. One assessment method we have all heard about is standardized testing that assesses students, well I think we should look at the assessment methods to better determine success.
ReplyDeleteI think of the students as being the cow and when we assess them, we are "weighing them" to see how much they have grown or learned. When we assess them and see that they have not shown improvement or "grown" then that tells us that we need to modify our instruction to help meet the needs of that particular student. Not all of our students are going to learn or grow at the same rate, so it is important for us to assess or "weigh" them to make sure all of our students (cows) are growing. I feel that it is important to (weigh the cow) or assess the students from the beginning, so as a teacher you are aware of all the different needs of the learners in your classroom. Assessment is an ongoing process which is a great way to show what each student has learned throughout the entire year. In terms of the state tests, I do not think that this is a valid way to assess your students, because some students are poor test takers, and it does not show the large growth of improvement made by the student. If you keep assessments through out the entire year, you may find that you student is actually showing improvement in a specific subject even if their test scores show differently. I believe that assessment is a critical piece to designing your instruction. If your cows are not growing, then that shows you that you may need to do something differently to insure that your cows grow.
ReplyDeleteIf I understand the anology correctly? We are refering that a student is a cow and we wiegh this cow by giving assessments on pior knowledge and thier future knowledge. I can see how the use of the cow terminology comes into affect. The cow wonders around a pasture grazing looking for something new, much like how a student wonders around a school looking for new information.So by testing these cattle hopefully it will inprove the cow's success.
ReplyDeleteSome assume if we weigh the cow the cow will grow. However not all teachers/administrators take into account what should be down to promote the growth. For instance, throughout my pre-service observations I witnessed countless "cram weeks" prior to ISAT. These teachers were teaching to the test a few weeks prior - thus hoping that this prep week would provide enough growth to show improvement within the actual assessment. Some schools even go as far as to have after school tutoring a month before ISAT to help those Teir 3 and Teir 2 kids get an extra boost prior to the test. This idea of cramming doesn't work - in many instances students feel overwhelmed and as Anne said some students are just poor test takers. It is unfair to paint a picture of a child based off of one instance. As many have said above, assessment is used for entirely the wrong purposes today. Many teachers do not take the data from their assessments and alter their instruction according to that individual classes needs. After all we have to assess - why not do it to benefit the students and ourselves?
ReplyDeleteThe analogy of the cow being the student and the weighing being the assessment is accurate but I don't believe that weighing the cow will necessarily make the cow grow. It seems to me that many current assessments don't provide the teacher with accurate results and do very little to provide an accurate description of areas of remediation for that student. One has to look no further than AIMSWEB a popular assessment for RTI used by the majority of schools in this area (mainly because the state offers the program for free). AIMSWEB provides the teacher with assessments for tiers 1,2, and 3 but does very little to provide useful results for the teacher. The teacher may know that there student missed certain problems but are unaware of what problems and what areas need to be remediated. Assessments that are only formal do not provide the teacher with accurate results and fail to show the true magnitude of the student's current skill level. Assessments need to be both formal and informal and teachers need to understand and learn how to properly assess their students from both formal and informal assessments. SO going back to the analogy if we weigh the cow the cow will grow but only if we are using an accurate scale and we understand how to properly read that scale.
ReplyDeleteNow that is still not to say that the cow will grow just because we know how to properly weigh the cow and use the scale. The cow must be provided with food and nourishment if the cow is to grow. Meaning the teacher must use both formal and informal assessments and properly read the results of these assessments and apply these results to their teaching of the necessary skills to the student.
The discipline of teaching reading stipulates that a balanced approach works best, so when assessing students a balanced approach should be used with both formal and informal assessments. Teachers need to consider all factors when assessing students in order to determine the most accurate results from assessments.