Earlier on in the semester, I took an intersession class that talks specifically about classroom assessment. Before having taken that class, I did not know that there were so many little details to worry about when it came down to evaluation students' works and giving effective feedback. Coming away from that class however, I think I am a little more careful about the things I say to students and how they might interpret it.
When I look at the word evaluation, I think of the role of a teacher when students hand in assignments to be graded or evaluated. What I often think however, is that when an assignment is evaluated, there is a grade that comes with it. I find that quite problematic however (having come from many years of schooling and many different grades) because I think teachers are starting to lose what is most important to evaluation; and that is the student. As teachers, I think it is very easy to get carried away with just assigning a student a grade and getting the work over with because I would think teachers are really busy people in general.
Students are more than just a letter grade. Thinking about the school system and how I was raised up in elementary school, high school, and university, grades were everything to me. My grades determined whether I was going to gain the approval of my parents (as you can see, that is an Asian stereotype and yes, it is to a certain extent true) and how my next year was going to turn out (whether I had to work twice as hard). I think both teachers and parents get too carried away with how much grades define a student and most of the time, using grades as a determinant often hurts the student. Students are each unique individuals and I believe that grades can be a factor that can be taken into account when we are evaluating our students in total.
Each student should be given a fair chance at evaluation. I also believe that the school system right now places way too much emphasis on giving exams rather than trying to let different students show their work in different ways. Our world is diverse and each individual is as well. Each student is unique and has their own personality (e.g. personality traits and types) and I think that we should give each student equal chances at showing us what they are made of through different activities and tests if necessary. I know that for a fact, everyone has different preferences. For instance, some of us might highly enjoy public speaking while some of us absolutely despises it. These differences should not be stopping us from showing what we are capable of in the classroom context.
Giving effective feedback can change a student. I recall going through school without very much useful feed (or feedback for that matter). As I mentioned earlier on in this blog post, grades have been the most defining aspect of school and nothing was really given to me as a way to improve. I do see a difference however between high school and university. In university, I can see that when I get my assignments or papers back, professors or TAs generally try to give me more suggestions as to how I can improve on my writing skills and my ideas. In high school however, I feel that teachers are too overwhelmed with the amount of work they have to devote to school than to actually give any of the grades they give second thoughts (it was more dependent on the teacher's mood and whether the teacher liked you as a student).
I think that if teachers can attend to each student's different needs to perform, then students would be given a better chance at showing what they are capable of and what they can achieve. Also, by giving more effective feedback and more detailed descriptions of what they need to improve on, students can engage with the material and hopefully learn and take more from it. Learning how to use different evaluative techniques and giving effective feedback would definitely benefit teachers, students, and parents in total.
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