Week 7 Assessments

A teacher can have the best knowledge in the world about their subject area, but if they do not know how to engage students and make their content meaningful then something is wrong with the picture. Some teachers do and teach the same things year after year, there is a major problem when the students are not learning the content year after year. The solution to this would be to asses students constantly, and teachers need to also be assed by the students. I really enjoyed the reading for this week about assesments. I thought it was interesting and very meaningful for a future teachers of any subject including economics. As William Walstad, the author of the article "Assessment of Student Learning in Economics" meantions assessment is a broad term. He defines what terms summative and formative assessment are. Summative assesments are the typical; grades represent the instrutors judgement of the mastery of the content. Formative was the second type of assessment, and my personal preference. This type helps shape instruction and learning throughout the course, it is an oppurtunity to check their understanding as a self assesment and also get some feedback on the instructors teaching methods. Walstad lists ten ways to check understanding. Some personal favorites are for students to indentify at the end of the most important or confusing point of the lesson/ class. I would implement this by having the students keep a journal and write for the last 5-10 min of class if time permitted. Another method I liked was having student construct exam questions. This method is great because students would have to go back to the material and review it in order to construct the questions, plus the incentive would be for the possibility of having their queston on the test or as an extra credit point. Overall assesments don't have to be dry and boring for the students whether it is a test, essay, class or homework, there are some practical ways of doing so.