Module 2 Blog by Jarod Rollins

 

The most surprising thing to me about this week’s content was all the effort and preparation that goes into creating assessments. As a student, I never realized the amount of work that goes into something like a test. In the objective test, performance task, and informal questions, it took a lot of time and effort to come up with the learning targets and then create good questions that would be valid and reliable. Not to mention, all the techniques that go into developing a multiple-choice test. As I think about what role assessments will play in my classes, I’m realizing I’m going to be spending a lot of time and effort to get them right in the beginning. I now understand though, why they are important and how they can help my teaching and my student’s learning. I look forward to having them to guide my instruction and measure my student’s proficiency.

There are several things that are challenging about creating assessments. First, we as teachers must decide what proficiency is and how to measure it for a specific unit or subject. Then we must figure out what questions or tasks we can ask of our students that will tell us if they are proficient. Whether formative or summative, it is difficult to condense weeks of learning into minutes of assessment and get accurate results. On top of that, the stakes are high. Each student’s results will impact their grade, our success as teachers, and even the state and national rankings. In addition, the results guide what and how we teach. That is a lot to expect form a 20 question multiple-choice assessment and that puts a lot of pressure on us as teachers to get it right. Assessments remind me a lot of market research and survey creation which I studied in my undergraduate program. Small and seemingly insignificant things like the order of questions can mean the difference between failure and collecting valuable data. I see assessments as the same, an artform that I must development my skills in to be successful.


The first strategy that I will employ to make assessment creation more manageable is to start with the assessments that those before me have created. This may not always be possible, but if I can, I want to use tests and assessments that are already available and make small modifications to them over time. This will make my job much easier and reduce the pressure I feel. If there is not a test from another teacher, I will look to online resources as a starting point. If I use this method I will probably research multiple assessments and take questions or parts from each to make my own. Another technique I will use is to keep a file or notepad somewhere so that I can easily jot down test question ideas or project ideas as I am teaching my classes. That way if I have to create an assessment from scratch I will have some ideas to start with.

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