Something bad is done when evaluating a student if, at the end of the semester, he is tired, unmotivated, stressed and on the verge of depression by the final tests that measure more memory than learning.
Many teachers evaluate to see if students are learning or not, but forget that the assessment is also used to give an idea of the quality of teaching.
- In this sense.
- It is very important to differentiate the concepts of evaluation and rating.
- The score is only the result of an evaluation; on many occasions.
- This is a small number.
However, evaluation is another way to learn. Its usefulness is practically null if it does not provide information on how to improve Does a score between 0 and 10 tell us more than we got an expected or unexpected result?
Evaluation is, or should be, an opportunity to put knowledge into practice and express ideas. This should be the time for questions and doubts.
This makes sense when serving those who learn, when the teacher uses the green pen to highlight hits and attributes errors only to the original entity. When teachers evaluate to give a grade, but not to help students improve, it becomes a meaningless activity.
Currently, in many countries the idea is for teachers to focus more on skills than content, not everything taught should automatically become an object of evaluation, everything students learn is not evaluable.
Teaching is not so much about providing knowledge as about helping students to reason, so learning not only serves to accumulate knowledge, but to internalize it and integrate it into our way of thinking.
Many tests consist of memorizing and repeating content: questions are easy to develop and easy to correct, they are part of a learning process where parents and teachers expect students to repeat what they have seen and heard, not what they have seen, thought. or imagined.
On the other hand, what many do not know is that a test has enormous power: to capture the attention of the student, something that is a kind of magic and that many also insist on shortening, without leaving much time to respond.
Therefore, a well-designed test should be a continuation of the student’s learning, a time to reflect on what is read and heard.
Finally, tests are rarely related to personal or social content, only in school, basic skills are ignored and students learn information in an automated way, without thinking critically about what they are writing.
As evaluation tasks diversify to promote skills development, appropriate assessment tools are also needed.
There are several tools used to evaluate learning outcomes, but among the various tools, topics have received more attention due to their versatility and educational potential.
Headings are grading guides used to evaluate student performance that describe the specific characteristics of a product, project, or task at different performance levels, to clarify what is expected of student work, evaluate their performance, and provide feedback (Andrade, 2005; Mertler, 2001).
Students get much more information through topics (feedback) than with other assessment tools, as they know in advance the criteria with which they will be evaluated.
Titles use criteria that promote learning and self-assessment and facilitate general understanding and development of different skills.
The topics are easy to use and explain to students. In addition, they increase the objectivity of the evaluation process, feedback on the effectiveness of the teaching methods used, are versatile and adapt to the requirements of the evaluation process.
Formative evaluation is characterized by its democratic character and the service of teaching and learning, which is very valuable when we need relevant and useful information, focusing on the processes and contexts involved in teaching and learning.
In conclusion, it is necessary to make an effort to understand the significant difference between “assessing” and applying a test.