Standards-based Education and Assessment

Throughout my schooling I have had many different forms of assessment. The first form I can remember involved a test. We would learn specific information and then be tested in a question format about that information. Usually between 20 and 30 questions per test. In class the teacher would cover a broad range of information about one topic or concept. Usually the test was made up of what the teacher thought was important relating to the topic or concept. In my seventh grade science the assessment was different. As groups we would learn how to use a balance, or measure things using displacement. Then together as a class the teacher would instruct us on topic relating to using the balance, such as rocks. The assessment would then look like a lab. We would have 15 different measurement to find in an allotted amount of time. We would rotate the balance and tools needed to find the answer. The answers I came up with were graded by the teacher according to the actual weight or displacement of an object. Chemistry class and Biology class was structured the same way. I had question/answer test and then a lab test as well. As a student I had to prove adequacy in question assessment and also physical concoctions of elements.

I really think that both kinds of test can be used depending on the subject. Long answer test were much harder because I had to show that I understood how to get the answer and not just mark a,b,c,d, or e. Labs and long answer tests are the best because the student has to provide the right knowledge on how and why he came up with the answer. Labs are great for hands on learners, there is no way to guess the right answer either. The student either shows the right comprehension on the assessment or not. I am not a big fan of number tests with a,b,c,d,and e answer boxes. As a student myself I would just memorize the material for the test, and then forget it after the class was over. Sometimes I didn't understand the concepts, I would just memorize the answers and then hope I chose the right box! It is really hard to do that in a lab assessment. If you don't understand what reactions you are looking for and what to mix together, it isn't going to work! Long answer tests also made me understand the concepts so I could explain them. I understand that their are subjects such as math that would be very hard to asses with long answer or in a lab form. Even then though the student can be asked to show his/her work and also to explain how he formulated his answer. This would require a lot on the teachers part. It is easy to send tests through a scanner that will mark the score, it is more time consuming to physically grade each test. From my experience if we want our students to learn then the student must understand the concepts and not just memorize the answers!