Joanie
Assessment and evaluation are important processes in the teaching and the learning process in education. Teachers perceive assessment as a stimulator that directs learning processes. However, assessment methods largely determine the strategy of students towards learning. In most cases, students are inclined to embrace normal strategies when assessment stresses on recall of factual knowledge and employ extensive approaches when the assessment tests higher levels of cognitive abilities. Learning approaches are dynamic and they are influenced by how the students perceive the learning environment. But through numerous researches, it has been reported that most students' choice of a learning strategy is based on the manner in which the assessment is being conducted. Multiple choice questions are frequently the type of tests either on their own or with a combination of other assessment questions such as short answer questions or short essay questions. This method of assessment is used to test knowledge comprehension and can be designed to test analysis and application of knowledge due to its high validity and reliability.
Joanie decided to construct multiple and short question answers to test her students' comprehension of major themes and literary devices employed in Shakespeare's The Tempest. She reviews the test with her students before giving them to do it. After marking and grading, she realizes that most of the students did not score well in biographical history and many misunderstood the main sections of the plot.
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For Joanie to effectively identify the specific information that the students had trouble with she can she can check on the flawed items in the test she constructed. Flawed items generally influence difficult and discrimination index. Whereas poor discrimination and low difficulty of an item favor weak students, high difficult and poor discrimination negatively affect high achievers. She can also use a test blueprint to locate the information the students had trouble (Lefstein & Snell, 2013). Test blueprint allows a spread of different content areas and at different cognitive levels. Finally, she can ask the students to point out the questions they experienced difficult in. Joanie can also create discussion groups blending those who performed better with those who performed poorly. As such, the students can discuss the questions with adequate assistance from fellow students.
Motivation is an important key factor in the success of a student especially a weak one and a teacher can play an important role in providing and encouraging motivation to his or her students. Granted, Joanie can effectively motivate those students with poor grades by creating an accommodating and a threat-free classroom environment (Lefstein & Snell, 2013). She should create a safe and supportive environment for these students. She can do this by believing in a student’s ability to be a high scorer than laying out consequences of not doing things better. For instance, by focusing on their efforts rather than grades and also by emphasizing those mistakes are purely used for teaching. Thus these poor students will be motivated to work towards achieving higher grades.
She can also motivate them by changing her scenery (Lefstein & Snell, 2013). Sitting in the class day in day out can make learning seem dull for some student, thus renewing interests of the subject matter enables to have a different perspective on learning. For instance, she can bring in a new speaker, take field trips or do some library research. This can be motivating to students with poor grades to learn.
Andre
In planning for a classroom lesson at least 5 to 10 minutes remains at the end of each lesson even when adequate planning is done. Now that the lesson's planned activities are for both the teacher and the students are left without any activity. This is a situation most teachers find themselves in; Andre is one of them. However, Andre feels that these minutes are worth doing something instructional productive that will he feels will help him to effectively gauge each student as they read through the topic over the next three weeks.
Questioning
Andre can use questioning activity which will subsequently inform the formative assessment in the future class period. By asking good questions the students will have a chance for deep thinking. This will provide the teacher with important insight into the depth of the student understanding. It is important for Andre to note that this kind of questioning should go beyond the factual questions that often require the recall of facts. Such questions are good in engaging students in the class to expand their learning and understanding.
Additionally, he should spend more time and effort in framing the questions in order to align them to the context of study; the French revolution, and also by exploring the issues that are pertinent in developing the students understanding. Such questions will include questions that provoke high-level thinking such as describing an event in the French revolution and state or defining an idea in their own terms. Provoking high-level questions requires a student to manipulate prior information, involve a student to observe and describe an event, and also require students to compare two or more situations, statements, illustration, and demonstrations. In the process of doing all these a student will start to establish an understanding of a concept. Equally, Andre can ask questions that are probing in nature, such as justifying or explaining a concept. These questions include why, how, and what questions. Probing questions promote critical and reflective thinking (Khau & Athiemoolam, 2013). He can also ask divergent questions; these types of questions not only allow students to engage in discussion but also help them to think independently, creatively and even more critically.
Since Andre spends much of his time in lecturing he can use the last ten minutes by incorporating his students into a discussion based on created groups of around four students per group. Discussions like these can tell a teacher more about the students’ learning and understanding of basic concepts and ideas (Khau & Athiemoolam, 2013). In these groups, Andre can ignite the discussion by asking an open-ended question. Here the aim is to develop creative and critical thinking skills as well as the building of knowledge. Basically, discussion helps students to increase the breadth and depth of understanding whilst discarding wrong information. It also expands the background of knowledge. Finally, he will assess the student understanding by just listening to their responses.
Jeff
To develope a culminating project one has to look back on small projects that he or she has been engaging in. A final project as Jeff proposes needs to reflect on the successes and failures of the previous projects on. It also has to reflect how one has advanced all along, and equally look into how it will help one develop in future. As such, Jeff’s project should be as per the following posed questions that have to be addressed in: What have been your successes and failures in the previous projects that you have handled? How have these projects helped you grow? How will this year’s projects and work affect your future development? (In Stout & Beudert, 2013)
Eileen
To ensure adequate oral presentation for the students, she has to provide three basic resources to her students in order to get a better presentation from each of them. Equally, it is important for her to let the student know how she wants the presentation to be conducted, what needs to be addressed in the presentations and how the assessment will be done. As such, for them to prepare adequately, she has to provide them with the venue of presentation. The venue of presentation has to be made available to the student. The venue can be either in class or in any other room made for purposes of presentations. The venue is important in the sense that the students need to arrange it properly to accommodate all the expected audience (In Stout & Beudert, 2013). For instance, the parents too are going to be present, hence sitting arrangement of the room should be made in such manner that everyone has maximum contact between him or her and the presenter.
Another resource that will influence the preparation of the students is the white or blackboard. The white or black boards are very useful resources in presentations; they help in explaining and illustrating ideas in a sequence manner. Being a math presentation the boards can be very helpful for the students. Providing the board in advance will enable students to practice on it how they are going to make better use of it during the actual presentation.
Eileen can also provide relevant reference materials for the students in order to research extensively for the project. She can do this by suggesting materials that are most recent and relevant to the topics to be researched on. This will help the students not to wander far from the expected results of the project.
Eileen can effectively assess her students by preparing an approach of which she can use to assess them during the presentation process. For instance, she has to consider at the delivery of content by the student. For example, an excellent student will hold the attention of the entire audience with the use of direct eye-contact whereas a poor student will hold no eye-contact with the audience and entirely depends on notes to make the presentation (Cousin, 2013).
She can also look at the organization of the content (Cousin, 2013). An excellent student’s content organization is logical and exhibits a clear purpose of the project whereas that of a poor student will not be clear and lacks purpose of the project or provides weak support of the project. Finally, she will consider the student’s audience awareness (Cousin, 2013). An excellent student will demonstrate a significant enthusiasm about the topic and is aware of the audience during the entire presentation. A poor student will show limited or no interest in the project presentation and will not be aware of the audience during the presentation.
She can the offer each student with the feedback by creating a rubric with the above-discussed strategies of assessment. She has to produce identical rubric for all the students, in that as a student come to make a presentation she gets his or her rubric to assess him or her. At the bottom of the rubric, she can note the student's weakness and areas that need improvement.
References
Cousin, G. (2013). Getting to the bottom of the well: the value of qualitative research into teaching and learning. Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning, 1, 1, 123-136.
In Stout, C. J. & Beudert, L. (2013). Teaching and learning emergent research methodologies in art education
Khau, M. & Athiemoolam, L. (2013). Using participatory and visual arts-based methodologies to promote sustainable teaching and learning ecologies: Through the eyes of pre-service teachers. Td: The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 9, 3, 401-412.
Lefstein, A., & Snell, J. (2013). Better than Best Practice: Developing teaching and learning through dialogue . Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
