Is it teaching to the test or is it the test lending to our teaching?

     This weeks reading focused on the evaluation of learning, something that many teachers struggle with. Do we grade students on their ability to recall information, on their work ethic, or on something else. Creating assessments and deciding how to evaluate learning is a tricky tricky business that requires a lot of thought and planning.

    Like everything, evaluations, tests, quizzes, rubrics, what ever the method you choose,  they all need to be based around the objectives that you have set fourth for the students. These are objectives that have guided your course, guided students learning, and should guide your exam. We aren't teaching to the test, the test is lending itself to our teaching, it allows us as educators to make the final determination if our students have mastered the content to our expectations. Evaluations allow us to determine if we should move forward or not.


     Evaluation is the key to tapping into what my students have learned. As we get to know our students and watch them grow and develop into animal scientists, researchers, agronomists, mechanics, whatever it is,  we get to know their strengths and weaknesses and thats were variability comes back.

     We have all been in that classroom that gave the same format exam every time. 50 multiple choice questions, a 100 point exam go...

     These exams were great for those few students, but for many they were hard, they nit picked at finite details that didn't seem as important as the bigger picture. By varying the types and formats of assessments given we can meet all students needs.

     As we learn and begin to think about the ideals put in place in our cooperating centers, we are encouraged to think about how we will run our own program one day. Every piece determines the ultimate success or failure of an educator, everything down to how and what we assess.

     By choosing an appropriate assessment method and developing it according to the "rules" researchers have brought forward, we are setting our students up fro success, as long as we have tested to the objectives.

    Each evaluation method has its pros and cons I have come to learn, there is not a right or wrong method to use, but there are right and wrong ways in which to use them. Knowing these "rules"makes me think back about the many poorly written exams I have taken. It also makes me think more critically about the exams I will design for my students, to ensure they have the
opprtunity to show me what they have really learned.