Journal # 7

 Educational Psychology Chapter 13: Assessing Student Learning & Chapter 14: Standardized Test & Accountability 

Journal #7 

Chapters thirteen and fourteen focused on assessing student learning, standardized testing, and accountability learning environments. Throughout this journal entry I will be discussing and responding to the following questions. 

• How did you feel about the concept?
• How is this concept significant concerning the context of your classroom?
• How might you use what you learned to become a better teacher?
• If this event sparked additional questions, what are they and what actions will you take to address them?
• After researching your additional questions, what information knowledge and or skills did you gain?  

Chapters thirteen and fourteen focused on assessing student learning, standardized testing, and accountability learning environments. I feel that these concepts are necessary for teachers to identify targets and assess the students’ knowledge. I also fill that the frequency that students are assess should be given purposely and not for the sake of simply testing.  An effective assessment should provide the teacher and student with quality and/or ability of the student to perform and show their understanding of the objective. Chapter thirteen focused on how assessments measure student performance of learning and how feedback leads to clearing misconceptions (Slavin, 2021) and identifying necessary steps to fill the gaps. The instructional and behavioral objectives that are created to support student academic growth. Chapter fourteen covers a variety of standardized test. Slavin (2021) states, “standardized test are meant to offer a yardstick that teacher made test cannot” (p.392).  Throughout the chapter it is explained how the use of the instructional practices and objectives prepares students for standardized testing. 

This concept significant concerning the context of your classroom…. One of the most important criticisms of traditional standardized testing is that they can focus on a narrow range of skills found on the test (Slavin, 2021, p. 379). Performance tasks are a better alternative to give students a varied assessment. I don’t believe in teacher to the test, but I do believe in teaching the information that is on the test while giving the students time to explore the information beyond the test. The more that students are exposed to the better the chances for them to gain more information. Students will not remember everything that is taught the more exposure increase the amount of information they will remember. While reading the text I learned about performance assessments. Performance assessments are typically scored according to rubrics that specify in advance the type of performance to that is expected for each activity (Slavin, 2021, p. 380). Students can approach performance assessments in multiple ways. This is like the work that we have at the university. The professor provides a rubric and allows students to meet the requirements in her own way. In my opinion this is the best way to find out what a student knows. I also think it’s getting more knowledge from the student than when someone is just teaching to the test. 

One question that was sparked is why we continue to use standardized testing. In my opinion it adds unnecessary stress on the student. However, all states have statewide testing programs in which students at selected grade levels take state test (Slavin, 2021, p. 404). If the government trust the teachers to effectively teach the standards and execute proper instruction to meet their student’s needs, why standardize test? This is beyond me. As a teacher I add assessments in my lesson plans that provide me with the information that I need to determine if my students met the learning objective. From this point I determine what the next steps should be. Standardized tests are bias against low income and students with diverse backgrounds (Slavin, 2021, p. 406). When I taught at a school with a heavy ESOL population I witnessed this firsthand. This is because most of the students’ parents did not have access to tutoring services for their child. Many of the parents only spoke their native langue so it was difficult for them to effectively support (assist) their children with their homework, projects, and other take home activities.  After researching my question about standardized testing, I realized that these tests go beyond trusting whether if the teacher is being effective or not in the classroom or not. Slavin (2021) states, “because of the various roles that the test is expected to play in schools and education process, three classes of evidence of validity are concerned to test users’ content, criterion, and consequential evidence” (p. 404). 

Some students perform better with paper and pencil testing, while others perform better with computerized testing. I think this is important to know as a teacher especially when working with low income and diverse populations. If English learners are excused from at a test their needs may not be adequately met (Slavin, 2021, p 407.). At a school in Rhode Island 42 percent of students passed a paper and paper English Language Arts standardized test while only 34 percent passed on a computerized test (Slavin, 2021) but in other schools and situations this was not the case. It is a good idea to offer the parents the option of giving their child the paper and pencil versions or computerized versions of the standardized test. Fortunately, there are policy’s put in place to support he needs of diverse learners. I teach students with disabilities and these students receive testing accommodations to even the playing field. Extending testing time has been proven effective (Slavin, 2021), read and paraphrase the questions, preferential seating, frequent brakes, read aloud, and more. No matter how I feel about the test the fact remains that these are high stakes test. The results can contradict founding, placement of teachers, classroom sizes and more so, it is important that principals and the district express the need and desire for students to pass and teachers to hold the students accountable. 

I will use what you learn to become a better teacher by being somewhat of an advocate for standardize testing and by using the strategies that I learned in chapter thirteen to choose the best evaluations for my students. As much as I do not care for standardized testing, I know that the results lead to school improvement. The results of the test lead to remediation, new programs, and even revisions in the curriculum. The results are also used for specialized measures such as vocational inventories and psychological scales used for counseling students (Slavin, 2021, p. 394). I was put on the leadership team for next school year. I can’t wait to suggest some form of vocational inventories and programs based on the results of the standardized testing for this passe school year. I love the idea that the data from the assessment will benefit the students beyond academics. This ties into their social and emotion being. I know that students perform better when they feel better about school.  As far as evaluation selecting, I am going to choose assessments that elicit evidence of learning. Research shows that the use of instructional and behavior objectives must be clear and explain what students should know and are able to do at the end of a lesson and/or unit (Slavin, 2021). This has also sparked my mind to use a rubric to determine the validity of assessments such as benchmarks and end-of-course assessments that my district and school are already using.  This journal read has motivated me to continue to better prepare how to how to prepare myself better as a teacher to be the best version myself.  By doing this I will be best prepared for best practices implementation for my students. 

Slavin, R. E. (2021). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (13th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education.