Thursday, 31 March 2016

ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING IN CLASSROOM

ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING IN CLASSROOM
Learning is a relatively permanent change in, or acquisition of knowledge, understanding or behavior. There are three ways of learning, they’re Transmission, Reception and Construction.
Student Evaluation in Transmission Reception (Behaviorist ) Model of Education
Reception is model of learning where there is transmission of knowledge from the external source (for example, teacher) to the receiver (students). So, learning here is being taught. The teacher gives students the concept and knowledge while students are only receiving it purely.
Transmission is Sending & Receiving messages, knowledge, signals. Which includes no scope for creativity, Rigidity and Generally method of teaching is Lecture Method.
Behaviorism Theory of Learning “ Teachers must learn how to teach … they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.” -B. F. Skinner By: Brittaney
Behaviorism assumes that a learner is essentially passive, responding to environmental stimuli. It Believes that When born our mind is ‘tabula rasa’ (a blank slate) , and behavior is shaped by positive and negative reinforcement. Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion. Observable (i.e. external) behavior can be objectively and scientifically measured. Internal events, such as thinking should be explained through behavioral terms (or eliminated altogether).
Assessment in Behaviorist Model of Education
     Here the importance is to assess how much students where receiving the information transmitted by the teacher. Knowledge transmission cannot be evaluated. But indirect methods can be used to assess attention or emotional states. Here teacher can assess only the success of teaching process. In this more weightage is given to knowledge level and understanding level of attainment of objectives. Traditional bloom’s taxonomy is the base for assessment. In this assessment is summative in nature.
Drawbacks of Assessment in Behaviorist Model of Education
§  Assessment is only about the success of teaching process.
§  Students are passive listeners so proper assessment of achievement is not possible.
§  Less importance to psychological aspects of learner.
§  More importance to the product achieved by the students.
§  No weightage to the mental process of learners.
§  No continues assessment of the learner.
§  Less importance to co-scholastic achievements.
Student Evaluation in Constructivist  Model of Education
Formalization of the theory of constructivism is generally attributed to jean piaget, who articulated mechanisms by which knowledge is internalized by learners. He suggested that through processes of accommodation and assimilation, individuals construct new knowledge from their experiences. “ Teaching is not about filling up the pail, it is about lighting a fire” Constructivism: focuses on knowledge construction .It is a theory of knowledge that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. Constructivism is a theory of knowledge  that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. It has influenced a number of disciplines, including psychology, sociology, education and the history of science.
When individuals assimilate, they incorporate the new experience into an already existing framework without changing that framework. This may occur when individuals’ experiences are aligned with their internal representations of the world, but may also occur as a failure to change a faulty understanding; for example, they may not notice events, may misunderstand input from others, or may decide that an event is a fluke and is therefore unimportant as information about the world. In contrast, when individuals’ experiences contradict their internal representations, they may change their perceptions of the experiences to fit their internal representations.
According to the theory, accommodation is the process of reframing one’s mental representation of the external world to fit new experiences. Accommodation can be understood as the mechanism by which failure leads to learning: when we act on the expectation that the world operates in one way and it violates our expectations, we often fail, but by accommodating this new experience and reframing our model of the way the world works, we learn from the experience of failure, or others’ failure.
It is important to note that constructivism is not a particular pedagogy. In fact, constructivism is a theory describing how learning happens, regardless of whether learners are using their experiences to understand a lecture or following the instructions for building a model airplane. In both cases, the theory of constructivism suggests that learners construct knowledge out of their experiences.
Assessment in Constructivist  Model of Education
Constructivism is often associated with pedagogic approaches that promote active learning , or learning by doing. The view of the learner changed from that of a recipient of knowledge to that of a constructor of knowledge, an autonomous learner with metacognitive skills for controlling his or her cognitive process during learning. Learning involves selecting relevant information and interpreting it through one’s existing knowledge. Accordingly, the teacher becomes a participant with the learner in the process of shared cognition, that is, in the process of constructing meaning in a given situation. Concerning instruction, the focus changed from the curriculum to the cognition of the student. Thus, instruction is geared toward helping the student to develop learning and thinking strategies that are appropriate for working within various subject domains. Correspondingly, assessment is qualitative rather than quantitative, determining how the student structures and process knowledge rather than how much is learned. Continuous and comprehensive assessment is one of the main strategy in constructivist learning. In this assessment is formative rather than summative. Weightage to learning objectives in the assessment is given based on the revised blooms taxonomy.
Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)
Continuous and comprehensive evaluation is a process of assessment, mandated by the Right to Education Act, of India. This approach to assessment has been introduced by state governments in India, as well as by the Central Board of Secondary Education in India. The main aim of CCE is to evaluate every aspect of the child during their presence at the school. This is believed to help reduce the pressure on the child during/before examinations as the student will have to sit for multiple tests throughout the year, of which no test or the syllabus covered will be repeated at the end of the year, whatsoever. The CCE method is claimed to bring enormous changes from the traditional chalk and talk method of teaching, provided it is implemented accurately.
As a part of this new system, student's marks will be replaced by grades which will be evaluated through a series of curricular and extra-curricular evaluations along with academics. The aim is to decrease the workload on the student by means of continuous evaluation by taking number of small tests throughout the year in place of single test at the end of the academic program. Only Grades are awarded to students based on work experience skills, dexterity, innovation, steadiness, teamwork, public speaking, behavior, etc. to evaluate and present an overall measure of the student's ability. This helps the students who are not good in academics to show their talent in other fields such as arts, humanities, sports, music, athletics, and also helps to motivate the students who have a thirst of knowledge.
Characteristics of Continues And Comprehensive Evaluation  
§  Teachers evaluate students in day-to-day basis and use the feedback for improvement in teaching – learning process.
§  Teachers can use varieties of evaluation methods over and above the written tests.
§   Students can be assessed in both scholastic and co-scholastic areas.
§   Evaluation is done throughout the year and therefore it is expected to provide more reliable evidence of students’ progress.
§   CCE encourages the students in forming good study habits.
§   The feedback provided by CCE can be effectively used in remedial teaching to slow learners.
CCE is child-centric and views each learner as unique. This evaluation system aims to build on the individual child’s abilities, progress and development. That the child should not feel burdened during the learning years, CCE made formative and summative assessments mandatory in all CBSE schools. The learner thus was also benefitted by having to focus on only a small part of the entire syllabus designed for an academic year.




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