EVALUATING STUDENT LEARNING

Dr. Wendy Ghiora – Posting #46 – April 17, 2010

Many educators view assessment of student learning as a comprehensive task. However, evaluating a student’s performance can actually be done in a formative and/or a summative way.


Formative evaluation is a process of ongoing feedback on performance. The purposes are to identify aspects of performance that need to improve and to offer corrective suggestions. The formative version of learning assessment, deals with the different ways teachers can evaluate students based on the material presented in class. The students themselves get to see where they need to concentrate more efforts on then use the information collected from this type of assessment. The teachers can also use the results to focus in on the areas where extra time should be spent on instruction.

Summative evaluation is a process of identifying larger patterns and trends in performance and judging these summary statements against criteria to obtain performance ratings. You must rely upon your evidence and perceptions to justify ratings. The summative version of assessment of learning gives teachers the opportunity to grade work that evaluates the quality of the student’s work through different assignments. Not only is this data graded for accuracy but also how well the student translates their knowledge of the subject matter at hand.

The bottom line is that assessment of learning is what many educators do to determine whether a student is ready to pass to the next level of study. It is not always at the end of the year before grade promotions. In fact, it can and should happen frequently throughout the year and should incorporate more than just grades but also level of competency in other areas of learning as well.

Evaluation lies at the heart of improving teaching and learning. However you look at it, change only comes about when you determine to make a change. In order to come to that determination, you must first consider your current practice, and come to the conclusion that change is necessary. If you don't want to change your practice, or to improve your practice, if you don't want to improve the learning experience of your students, then there is no need to evaluate their learning experience or the learning environment you have created for them. However, if you are eager to improve the learning experience of your students, then it is important for you to consider where change can best be effected. It is quite valuable to begin by evaluating that experience. Appropriate and effective evaluation can lead to appropriate and effective change and development. Indeed, evaluation should not be seen as something additional to your teaching. It should be seen as an integral part of the design and delivery of a program of teaching for high quality student learning.

An educator serious about effecting positive change in their teaching should be able to do the following:
· Identify and describe the learning outcomes you are trying to achieve for your students
· Distinguish between the different kinds of outcomes commonly achieved in education
· Study some of the most common evaluation systems used in education
· Evaluate these systems and determine those that are suitable for your purposes
· Identify how you can build evaluation into your own teaching as a normal part of your design and development practice
· Determine how to design and use student self-assessment as part of your evaluation process
· Identify and describe how to create meaningful rubrics to measure student progress in several different subject areas
· Design a “Teacher Evaluation” to be completed by your students for the purpose of letting you know what changes they need and what they consider is working well for them in your class

. 'teachers who respond to their children's message, and not to their mistakes, appeared to help their children more.' John Smith Warwick Elley New Zealand Educators