Part One:
After reading the poem “Chapter 14” in this module I feel confident in answering the question to why offering multiple choice or chapter tests limit the thinking and abilities of the students we teach. I feel that multiple choice or chapter tests limit the creativity and cognitive thinking process of students to develop and answer questions. When you have a one out of four or five chances to get an answer correct when possibly not having a clue to what the true answer is weakens student’s reflection and cognitive thought process to expand their knowledge. When you allow or test students to critically analyze questions or problems forces them to think outside the box and their comfort level. In doing so, students gain experience in real world examples where problems are not just choices on a piece of paper. I feel giving students essay or self explanation type questions you allow students to grow and increase their abilities as a student in the realm of education, which will provide understanding later in their lives.
Part Two:
I- Formative assessments I currently use are observations, discussions, and constructive quizzes. In my lesson, I try to incorporate all students. While teaching, the best way for me to do so are involving discussion based questions in my lesson allowing students to have feedback and show proof of understanding of the topic. I also like to have constructive quizzes after finishing a lesson to judge what the students gained from my lesson and what areas they had a tougher time understanding so I may be able to focus on that subject or area more next time. In doing these assessments, I try to observe my class as much as possible focusing on students feedback, questions, and participation with the lesson, which helps me understand who has a good grasp of the lesson topic and who does not so that I may be able to assist them.
II- Examples of summative assessments I currently use are research papers and exams. When using research papers as an assessment allows me to see more of an individual expression or understanding from the student and how much knowledge of the subject they have. Papers allow students to reflect and express their opinions on paper, which shows they recognize what the essential goals are for my class. The use of exams allows me to see more of an overall understanding from students of the subject. Exams allow students to show their knowledge in a wide variety of topics, which shows their strengths and weaknesses on what they understood.
III- It is important to use both types of formative and summative due to formative assessments help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work and help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately. Summative assessment on the other hand evaluates student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.
IV- Three kinds of assessments I want to try to implement in the future semesters would be a Final Project within my class, a Kinesthetic assignment, and a Peer/Personal assessment due to I feel a Final Project would be a fun and creative experience for students to develop a event from history and have somewhat of a report to turn in involving many facts and key terms this project would show proof of understanding in a major event in history. A Kinesthetic assignment would be a fun and movement based lesson that would involve action scenes or role playing from the students, which preparation would be key to show understanding of the topic. Finally, a Peer/Personal assessment would be unique ways to have students evaluate other students based on knowledge and delivery of the lesson. Students would pick topics for lesson to teach to the class and then receive evaluation based on their academic performance allowing students to show understand and proof of the subject to plan to teach to the class.
