Tests and assessments are an essential part of
education. They are used to make sure
that students are learning what they need to.
In Content Area Writing
chapter 10, we learn that this is not always done well, and is not always
valid. Tests have a number of
limitations the authors say. For
example, writing for tests is an artificial situation. When writing, the students are solely writing
for the teacher for a grade, and are writing things the teacher already
knows. This is a type of writing that
does not take place elsewhere. Another
limitation is that tests are single moments in time. They do not necessarily reflect a student’s
progress or demonstrate what the student really knows. I would add other limitations like anxiety, “blanking,”
and time constraints as well.
We are given several ideas for making tests better, and I
liked a number of them. One was to have
tests be more thought provoking. They
should not just require restating facts, but should require higher levels of
thinking. Another idea was to allow students
to take home tests. I think that this
would especially work if the tests require more than just restating facts that
the students can look up in their text books, but require them to apply or
analyze information. By having take-home
tests the students get more time and can polish their writing.
I also appreciated the chapter’s thoughts on rubrics. Often, we are told to use rubrics in our
assignments but are rarely told the drawbacks of rubrics. The book states that rubrics can constrain
students in their writing and teachers in their grading. Rubrics can be so detailed that all
assignments end up looking alike and little thought is put in to them. They recommend that rubrics be kept short
and that flexibility be built into them.
These are both good ideas which I will follow.
