Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Keeping in mind that assessment not only deals with individual evaluations (whether students, teachers, administartors, office workers etc.), I want you to consider how our schools have recently come under much scrutiny with regards to whether they are performing below minimum standards, or if principals are underperforming, or if teachers' performance in the classroom is lacking. Consider the many reports: Minott, Campbell, Gleaner's 2020 Education, and discuss your views of their validity, reliability, fairness, or any other views that you have to share. Be clear about what you are critiquing and substantiate your analysis with valid points. You are policy makers and researchers here, so response critically and analytically.
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It is interesting that 'school' has become the new buzz word. I have been listening to a number of arguments being put forward by persons that have an avid interest in the field of education and I am amazed that many persons fail to examine the many factors that are affecting our school system such as indiscipline, the lack of resources(especially as it relate to technology and funding), and the fact that at present we seem to be using a curriculum (R.O.S.E.)in grades 7 -9 that has a number of gaps in that it does not help in preparing the students for CSEC.This of course would be important as grades 7 to 9 should be seen as the building blocks leading up to CSEC.
ReplyDeleteAll schools are not equal!!! There are many schools (traditional)that will not use the R.O.S.E. Programme but rather create their own. At the end of the day these are the schools that are boasting the high level of passes in the various subjects.
I would want to believe that if it is in fact the Government's decision to put teachers under severe pressure, they need to do so only after they have evaluated their education policies. I am not in supoort of LAZY teachers but I really feel that enough credit is not being paid to teachers who work feverishly under ghastly conditions.
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In an article presented in the Gleaner, December 2, 2005, Mr. Minott mentioned that a young Jamaican, with even a distinction (Grade 1) in the CSEC English Language exam, has too much difficulty with grammar, choice of words, sentence construction and punctuation.
He said that it was primarily from language teachers that students in the region garner "the maturity and analytical skills they must employ to put in and to extract meanings from the words they write, read, speak, and hear."
While in theory the second part of his argument holds true, I belive that he has ignored the fact that many Jamaican teachers have as their first language Jamaican Creole. As a result of this, on a daily basis we like our students have to be learning the language. For many of us we grew up in an era in which grammar was taught. We did not understand why we were learning grammatical rules and possibly today we still can't explain many of the things we say.
The pedagogical approach of English has changed over the years and so at present the emphasis is on communication. After all isn't that the purpose that language serves?
Why don't these individuals criticize the Spanish and French grades in the same manner?
Aren't we all learning English, Spanish and French as a second Language?
Dr. Minott in his arguments have clearly ignored the societal, phantom, concomitant and rhetorical curricula.
Widdowson (1978)makes a good read. Dr. Minott should probably check this out!!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Trisan, our teachers are constantly pressured to produce but no one has ever looked at the conditions under which they are to produce.With the new economic crunch, we see our primary schools being bombarded with an exodus of children from the prep schools whose parents can no longer afford to keep them there.
ReplyDeleteYet, our government cry that our teachers fail to produce. like Trisan, I have no tolerance for teachers who abuse the system and put the nations children at a disadvantage for their own economic gain. However, we need to take a closer look at the limited resources our teachers have to work with, as well as the conditions in which they carry out their daily functions.
Although I agree with the fact that all schools are not equal, and the pitfalls that make them as such. I hasten to spin the coin in another direction,for many years our people have grown to become a selfish nation. I say that to say this, how many individuals have given back to the schools they are a product of in order to make a difference? we complain bitterly about how poorly some schools are doing, when many influential persons in our society once attended these very schools and have not given back, neither of their time nor talent.
In response to the good Dr., despite the controversy surrounding the mastering of the English Language, one must realize that English is indeed our second language and thus, it should be taught as a foreign language. Many of our children are taught the creole as the main language of communication from the home through their social and cultural experiences.
I believe that the curriculum, for whatever subject area should recognize this and as such structure its contents accordingly. Thus, it would no longer be an English teacher's problem but it would become an issue for all subject teacher in the teaching learning environ to address. In essence,in recognizing this fact, we would seek to work collaboratively for the betterment of our nation's children.
Trisan, I appreciate your point on "Why don't these individuals criticize the Spanish and French grades in the same manner[; especially since] "we [are] all learning English, Spanish and French as a second Language?" However, our assessment of English could not be measured with the same level of difficulty with Spanish and French, since we are exposed far more to English than both of these other languages (classrooms, many of our churches, communities, television, radio etc.) We, therefore, couldn't realistically have the same expectations for the assessment scores in English, French and Spanish.
ReplyDeleteIs it ethical to give students the exact questions they did in a course work on an examination? Is there any literature that speaks to this?
ReplyDeleteRoughly speaking, that's not just an unethical measurement, but it is also an invalid and unreliable assessment. Students regurgitating the familiar does not constitute testing, and if they are already aware of the questions, this could be considered "teaching to the test". There are numerous literatures out there against this. Keep in mind, however, that there are different types of tests; and if the familiar question really challenges the students' comprehension, analytical and interpretive skills it might be adequate. You may also need to consider the level of learners that are being assessed in this way, or the purpose of the test. The essential question is: can you truly assess your objectives with familiar questions?
ReplyDeleteWell Trisan what we have here is a society that values the results and not the means to obtain these results. With the MOEY more interested in assessing teacher performance, which is tied to the number of student that passes, we now find that students to pass examinations and improve performance on examinations by any means necessary on without also increasing actual mastery of the content tested. When this practice (of score pollution) is done the score from an assessment does not reflect the level of student mastery of content or objectives required by that assessment then harm has been done (Green and Johnson, 2009).
ReplyDeleteIf this is so I guess taking questions from workbooks that students use and placing them on an examination would be unethical.
ReplyDeleteWhen the students get the exact questions on a test and still fail. How would we assess that?
The percentile is a means of sorting data set so that measurments are in order from the lowest to the highest
ReplyDeleteOn the matter of CXC English paper 2...why is the paper now marked out of 130?
ReplyDeleteAdrian could you please explain percentile a little bit more clearly for me, not really getting it. How important is percentile to assessment? What or whom really does it affect?
ReplyDeleteA good read is: Schools need more parental, community support by Ken Chaplin (The Daily Observer, Tuesday, June 16, 2009)
ReplyDeleteSorry for the late response, let mi try and give light to the definition of percentile. First we need to look on the rank which, which tells us what positon a individaual came in an assessment but this give no relation as to how many other indiviuals did this assessment. Now Percentile is used to give an indiviuals overall placement in comparrison to the rest of the class.
ReplyDeleteeg1: if i came 1st in a class it give no indication as to how many other people i was assessed against.
To find the percentile i will have to know how a student ranked and how many people are in the class.
eg2 An individual is ranked 5th in a class of 40. This means that this individual did better than 35 other individuals (i.e class size- rank). To calculate the percentile we subtract the class size from rank of the student then divide that value by class size.
in our case (40-5)/40
this give us 35/40 = 0.875
to get this as a percentage multiply by 100
0.875 * 100 = 87.5%
this means this student did better that 87.5% of his/her colleagues
hmmm ".5" of a student....Adrian you know I'm messing with ya!!!
ReplyDeleteGood way of explaining!!!
Thanks Adrian....Trisan leave poor Adrian alone..lol
ReplyDeleteFAMILIAR QUESTIONS: The fact that there are different types of test, if the familiar questions really challenges the students comprehension, analytical and interpretive skills,I can truly assess my objectives with familiar questions inspite of the different variables.
ReplyDeleteI just love the material that I am being exposed to in this course....honestly i'm really taking my colleagues at work to task boy!!!
ReplyDeleteCan I tell you, i'm working out percentile based on the exam scripts that I have marked.
Learning really is a change in behaviour!!!
Trisan you too boasy!!! working out percentile eeh? Why do the hard work when you can just plug the values in excel, apply a formula and "presto!!!"- you got your scores. I'm not too psyched up about this percentile issue because so far to me its main use seems to be for comparative purposes and apart from that what else can this info be used for?(I guess I need to read about it some more). I agree with you concerning the materials we are being exposed to- eye-opening.
ReplyDeletePercentile can also help you to assess teacher, student, and school performance- not just against each other, but also an indication of the performance itself. For example, If John has a 75% in Metal Work in 9A and Jessica has 85% from the same exam, but from a different class (9E), the 2 students may have different percentiles. John's Metal Work grade might be lower than Jessica's, but he has a higher percentile for his class than does Jessica. What does this say about the Metal Work scores for all of 9th grade? If you combine all the grades for 9th grade in 1 spreadsheet as 1 larger cohort, clearly, John's percentile will fall, since his Metal Work grade would have been lower than Jessica's, and because she previously scored higher on the Metal Work test, but got a lower percentile, based on her class' cohort.
ReplyDeleteDC, I dont think I understand your example in your comment clearly, this I will print for further discussion
ReplyDeletePercentile can be use to assess teacher? How
ReplyDeleteI cant wait to discuss the topic of Test Construction, this I have alot to say
ReplyDeletehttp://www.utexas.edu/academic/cte/sourcebook/tests.pdf
ReplyDeleteFound this link online. Check it out I believe its useful.
I've joined in the action too late it seems so I will not comment on what has been exhausted.
ReplyDeleteGood and very short reading, Trisan, and thanks for sharing. I actually have it in my collection, and sent it to be printed for our upcoming class- June 27, 2009.
ReplyDeleteHaving read all the journal reflections that have been sent to me already, I am compelled to repeat what I had said in class last Saturday about the valid concerns of Trisan.
ReplyDeleteIf tests are to assess how much our students really know, and not to fail them, Multiple Choice Tests(MCT) can indeed be used to test the affective domain. As I have pointed out, most measurements for the affective domain are in the MCT format. In our discussion on Saturday, Trisan's main points were that we cannot determine the child's emotion, nor disctate the same; we cannot guarantee how honest the student's response is- but the same challenges are going to be present with other types of test formats. Please note again, that tests are not designed, or should not be designed to fail students, but to help teachers get a better understanding of our students.
MCTs do not necessarily have to carry correct/incorrect responses. Instead, they can be so designed for us to use our students' responses to get an understanding about their emotions, personality and general affective competence. MCT is not always about correct and incorrect responses (despite the traditional use), even though testers may have preferred responses.
Interesting...I see the point you are making DC but my next question is can it measure the psychomotor domain? Again all domains are taught so all domains should be assessed. Can mc measure the psychomotor domain?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1878380893.html
ReplyDeleteHola peeps you can all check this out.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAuthentic or Standardization Testing which do you prefer? For me I am still working it out as both has its advantages and disadvantages.
ReplyDeleteI prefer authentic assessment. If I had the power I would eliminate standardised tests totally. Know what Sexy2thacore why don't we just do away with testing and allow people to freely learn without all the stress.
ReplyDeleteHola peeps, so while I was doing my nightly surfing I found this website. Can you imagine straight from yard...funny how things just seem to pop out at ya when you least expect it. Here is the link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.uwi.edu/documents/pdfs/assessment_handbook.pdf
Trisan i agree with you lets stop the stress of testing.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou know I am really happy I found this article online. For all the ppl that figure that they want to talk about the 'type' of students that attend Campion, you need to read this. I also want to point out that he is not the first and surely will not be the last.
ReplyDeleteeverybody who attends Campion is not rich everybody who attends Campion is not from the high echelons of society.
everybody who attends Campion did not attend Preparatory School.
http://www.usaid.gov/stories/jamaica/fp_ja_test.html
Now back to my assignment.
Assessment is over for today, we have done our work & we have certainly done our play; but before we go we thank DC for a battle well fought and a job well done. So as we go we say 'well done "Scholars" we are surely on our way.'
ReplyDeleteJust Me.....lol
Kauna