IMPROVING TEACHING

EVA D. TAÑEDO

Educators need evaluations to educate students better. The 1995NCTM Assessment Standards list four reasons for assessments: monitoring students’progress, evaluating students’achievement, making instructional decisions, and evaluating programs. The difference between the first two is in the frequency and formality of the assessment p r o ced u r e.

Monitoring is a daily, hourly, even “minutely” process. Classroom teachers need to assess their pupils’progress to make dozens of professional decisions each hour. Most decisions are made on the basis of what has happened in the past minute.

Evaluating students’achievement happens as more deliberate intervals in a more formal setting. The usual format is still an old-fashioned, teacher-made test. Every good teacher knows that sense of achievement when we are convinced we have reached them all. We also know the deflating humiliation after a test covering what we thought the students had learned. Think again. Student forget. Teacher-made tests are a reality check.

Such test are traditionally sent home to parents. Yes, they usually have a numerical grade that may be hard on the poorer students’self –esteem and the better students’ social acceptance. So be it. Everyone knows those grades can quickly change . Meanwhile, they give teachers, parents, and children a sense of connection and accomplishment.

— oOo—

The author is SST III at Sta. Cruz High Integrated School, Sta. Cruz, Lubao