(Flashback) The Grade four students are so happy because they don’t have to study for any quiz or exam. This is because their teacher, yours truly, believes that assessments are there to make a learner’s life difficult. The teacher also believes that learners can learn more when they are not under pressure.
That belief has totally changed after I learned the Purposes of Assessments. The main purpose of assessment is to measure current learning status, to revisit learning goals, to find out if the current teaching process helps in achieving these goals, and to help learners achieve these learning goals by making adjustments based on the assessment data gathered.
Now, I get to ask my self before I design my instructional activities: What are my learning objectives? What kinds of assessments can I do to check my learner’s current knowledge and to help them achieve the learning objectives?
Now, I also learned that I can always do a diagnostic test before I design a lesson plan for a specific learner. I can do formative and interim assessments during the lesson proper so I can see if this learner is able to grasp the lesson. And finally, I can also do a summative assessment so I can see where the teaching process fails during the lesson period, so that the next lesson plans will be more effective.
With this new mindset as a professional, I can still make efforts to make assessments not dreading to learners. For example, I need to ensure assessment alignment to learning objectives so that learners will see the value of tests or projects. My final take-away from this lesson is that assessments are crucial parts of the Learning and Teaching Process. And, I can impart this lesson to my learners so that they, too, will understand the purpose of assessments. This way, they can keep on being happy students; as better teachers produce happy learners.
Better Teachers 