What is Assessment?

When I think of assessment, the first thing in my mind is a test. The simple word test makes me nervous because I feel the pressure of performing one hundred percent even though sometimes I don’t perform well. I think that tests do not prove that students know something. From my experience taking tests, I know that tests are not good evaluators. Sometimes I prepare myself for the tests by memorizing the material, word by word without understanding its meaning and then I have no idea of what I “learned.” The purpose of learning is to understand not memorize, but many students do no find other options to pass with good grades, therefore they just memorize information that they will not be able to apply in the future.

I guess that that is one of the reasons why I prefer math, because with math I know I cannot memorize information. Of course you need to memorize the formulas although you need to understand them in other to apply them. On the other hand, English scares me sometimes because is my second language. I remember memorizing vocabulary words for quizzes or tests, but these words meant nothing because if I memorized them it did not mean that I was actually learning them. Many teachers rely on vocabulary quizzes where students write definitions, but this does not necessarily prove that these students know these words.

Assessments remind me of the standardized tests given by the government, which supposedly show how much students know and what they don’t. First of all they are surprise tests. The teacher can teach you anything that might or might not be on the test, but if it is a surprise you have a chance of passing or failing. At the same time, some students do not do well on these tests because they get too anxious. No everyone is good test taker.

There are other ways to evaluate how much students know and is not just by taking tests. They can do projects where they can use their creativity, while at the same time, they are learning new things. Assessments help teachers to know whether students are learning something or not, it is a feedback. Students can have fun while doing assessments. There are creative projects where students can work as individuals or in groups. Assessments do not have to be boring, but they should be methods to encourage students to seek for more knowledge to build their own futures.