The topic on assessment serves both as a reminder and a refresher for me as a teacher.
Reminder in the sense that though I’m doing it daily to my learners, but still I need to be reminded of its mere purpose which is to provide valuable feedback both for me and my pupils. It helps me gauge my effectiveness of my teaching strategies and identify the areas where my pupils are struggling so I can allow them for a better understanding of how well they have mastered the material and where they need further support. I can then use this information to modify my instruction so I can motivate my pupils to engage in learning by providing them with clear feedback on their progress and helping them to set goals for their own learning.
Refresher in the sense that this topic refreshes my mind about the many strategies or ways of assessing the learners that I have not used for a very long time which I found relevant to answer the needs of the kind of pupils that I have now. I realized that as a teacher, I’m a way too traditional in using the pen and paper way of assessing my pupil’s understanding.
After attending the LAC session, I am proud to say that I really applied some of the strategies that were discussed to us, of course the format of assessment that I used was aligned with the learning objectives of the lesson to ensures that my pupils are being assessed on the skills and knowledge they are expected to acquire and that the results of the assessment are an accurate reflection of their understanding. And I would say that it was a breath of fresh air to my pupils, and they even wanted to have more of it, and I found and felt that the effort that I made to apply those strategies was rewarding.
And as a teacher, I would really say that learning assessment is significant for me to be able to help my pupils achieve their full potential. I am moved that when I give them assessment, it should be the purpose of just giving them a test but rather do it whole heartedly with the pure intentions of providing them clear feedback and support to help them identify the areas where they need improvement and develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.
Indeed, assessment is a valuable tool for both the teachers and pupils. It really is an essential component of any effective teaching-learning process!