Education and Politics...

 

Assessmentics

Assessment has been misunderstood and misused by many teachers, students and administrators (mainly); according to Lopez & Bernal (2009) ,"They (tests) also have other functions in society: tests are used, among other things, to define membership; to classify people; for developing curricula and textbooks, to determine criteria for success and failure; for power and control; and to influence teaching and learning. Language tests are also used as gatekeeping instruments (Spolsky,1997). That is, tests are often used as a means of political and social control"; right now, assessment and its results are not being used create to new courses or curricula, to add more programs or specific areas that a program may need, or even to offer guide or tutorials to students, but to make decisions about budget and about how to adapt programs so they may fulfill bureaucratic needs and so those in power can pay each other favors. 

www.bristolvea.org

When it is the time to make decisions about education, I believe professionals in THIS area should be in charge!  a person who knows the real needs of teachers and students and of the process itself,  should be the one in charge of deciding; whenever it is a matter of budget, he or she should of course be advised by an expert on a specific topic, but under no circumstance should a finance expert, or any other professional in any other area be in control of a topic that concerns mainly to human sciences; and as the perfect example of the bizarre political organization of our country, here I present you with the profile of our magnificent Minister of Education, it does not provide one hint of her being prepared, or have studied anything about teaching, not even an online course!

http://www.mineducacion.gov.co/1621/w3-propertyvalue-48904.html

We must not forget that " policy makers need to collect information about schools’ needs and realities directly from teachers before they impose new educational policies. Politicians need to consult with educators"  (Lopez & Bernal, 2009)

Young Learners & Creativity

wakeupthebestinyou.wordpress.com -

According to Mckay (2012), "Children bring to their language learning their own personalities, likes and dislikes and interests, their own individual cognitive styles and capabilities and their own strengths and weaknesses. These characteristics of children set them apart from older learners" in that set of mind, I believe we, as teachers, could use such specific characteristics to improve language learning as well as the cognitive area, that can at the same time enhance other areas of children's lives.  I have stumble upon a very, very interesting reading that would be worth reading, please do so and I can't wait for  your comments, (it's in Spanish) click on the link!

http://www.lavanguardia.com/lacontra/20101103/54063818455/la-creatividad-se-aprende-igual-que-se-aprende-a-leer.html

alawan.org -

 

Alternative Assessment Methods

thede-tech-tive4teachers.blogspot.com

Since understanding what alternative assessment is, and the wonderful benefits it has on students learning and on us, as teachers, I have felt very curious about it and did a little search on the web for more methods and activities that go beyond portfolios, journals, interviews and questionnaires; I came across with a wonderful piece of writing from the CAL (Center for Applied Linguistics), the author gives many innovative, fun, and practical ideas to use with our students, which I would like to share with you, since they are really easy, usable and contain real language!
here is a link to their website, please read it, and bare in mind that through alternative assessment, "students are evaluated on what they integrate and produce rather than on what they are able to recall and reproduce" (Huerta- Macias, 1995, p. 9).

Please let me know what you think!

 http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/tannen01.html

Assessing reading

Assessing Reading... For Real

I think we have all supposed students know how to read when they come into our classrooms, and why not? how difficult is it? if they read in Spanish, they sure know how to read in English, right? This skill feels so natural to us that we never stop to think about all the cognitive processes that co-exist behind it, and so we end up being so unfair to our students, sometimes they don't even know how to read in their native language!

W forget that reading implies not only putting letters and words together but the understanding of what is being read and the strategies used to reach such understanding; there is a set of micro and macroskills we use without even knowing we do. 

 

At reading Brown's (2000) chapter on assessing reading, which is "the most essential skill for success on all educational contexts..." I have come to realize all the terrible job I have been doing at assessing my poor students who have encountered the least meaningful, unauthentic reading tasks. I had never stop to carefully think of the criterion and principles an assessment task should meet! Authenticity, reliability, validity and washback were not in the back of my mind at planning a task; practicality, however, was always one of the main concerns. 

As fundamental as this skill is in the learning process, as difficult it is to assess since it has an "unobservable nature" (Brown, 2012); how do we know that a learner is "reading" ? how do we know, for sure, that they are comprehending what is in front of them? is it possible to know if, and when they are using top-down and bottom-up processing? and if they are, how do we realize if they are using them on the right moment, with the right type?

I am pretty sure that we can all spend a little longer of our time and come up with tasks that are meaningful for our students, that catch their attention, that emulate real life and awake their creativity, their critical thinking!  Tasks that meet, at least, the principles of washback, validity, and authenticity, that are more within our hands than reliability sometimes is; I would even dare saying that it is worth to sacrifice some practicality, at least at early stages, to make sure our students are learning how to read, are comprehending, and acquiring the skills to  reach full understanding. 

Finally and more importantly, I think we should establish some system in which students are required to read regularly, a reading club, a monthly debate about a book, etc. We can help them realize reading is such a wonderful activity! we all have that one book that made us dream, imagine, cry, and laugh; that awoke the passion for opening a book and feeling the smell of the pages, and their texture (the older the better!), that we couldn't stop reading, and we felt so thorn for reaching the end: the ambiguity of wanting to reach the climax of the story but the dreadful, devastating feeling of it being over. In this globalized world where video games, T.V's, and internet are the ultimate parenting tool, it is necessary to be the means through which children connect, and see the wonder and the joy of reading.

 

DESIGNING CLASSROOM LANGUAGE TESTS

 

 When I first started reading Brown's chapter on designing language tests, I thought it would be a "boring" manual on how to fail and/or promote your students, after all, what is there to know about tests? how difficult can it be to throw some questions, accommodate some multiple choices items, create a word-puzzle? what could be so complicated or important on a quizz that needs a whole chapter?! well, to my surprise there is a whole world of information and right, meaningful ways to assess our students that I as a teacher had no knowledge about.

First of all, and specifically, we must design tests, quizzes, assessment tasks that provide our students with washback; this is the main reason for assessing, rather than assigning a grade and have them pass or fail a course. It is also necessary to analyze everything students should know or be able to do at a certain stage of the learning process and based on those objectives, we must start planning activities that provide learners with real life uses of the language, natural conversations that create a meaningful and interesting context for them. Moreover, we need to make sure we know what kind of skills we want our students to be able to display, do we want them to write perfect essays? do we want to be effective speakers? so we can create the right assessing tools that are consistent with the tasks and exercises used during the whole course.

Secondly, teachers should be aware that feedback is the real reason why we assessed students. It is not enough to provide a number or a letter grade if they are not told about their weaknesses and strengths, it would not represent any gain for them. The testing experience should allow learners to identify their areas of success and challenge, this should be, ultimately, a learning experience. 

http://silviag.edu.glogster.com/assessment

Here is a more fun approach to the assessment post... Hope you all like it :)

           Assesment as a formative tool

Did we all grow up fearing test days? was it a source of stress and anxiety? were you really able to apply to real life all the information you learned for a test?

According to Scanlan, it could be said that current education in Colombia, to say the least, is not able to guarantee that students are learning rather than memorizing, nor that knowledge could be put into a real life context, where it could be used. Assessment in this system is reduced to test-taking and product evaluating, and its only purpose is to assign a grade or decide if a student should pass or fail a subject.

After reading Scanlan and if we take a minute to reminiscence about our previous teaching experiences, we could all conclude that the learning process is equally important than the final results; If teachers assess their students since the beginning they could make sure the students are having meaningful experiences; as well as evaluate their performance as educators so they can improve and renovate their practices and methods.

Using diversive, continuous, formative assessment might turn education into a meaningful,  learner-centered process and provide teachers with the right tools to create and innovate. We chose a path that puts other people's lives in our hands, it is our responsibility to give only our best and do all we can to fulfill such a marvelous task even when it means to reinvent ourselves and re-learn all the things we thought we knew; we, as teachers, should keep and open mind and absolute willingness to change as our students mentalities do.