Today’s assignment was to come up
with a creative way to solve our countries issues as they pertain to a subject
within education. The teacher of the group immediately honed in on the subject
of student evaluation as they pertain to standards, a subject in which we
really haven’t discussed (student evaluation not standards). I think it’s
interesting that the teacher in the class was of the first to bring up
students. Her idea, of which I hesitantly agreed to was to have student
evaluations based not on any standardized material, or comparative standardized
material (whether that be tests or projects), but on individual work that
highlights the skills and abilities of the student.
Originally I was hesitant towards
this idea and focused on asking the questions that politicians would ask. How
would we compare students to one another? How would we know that they covered
everything we wanted them too? Who would grade these assignments and how do we
avoid teacher bias towards their own students as well as lenient standards that
allow for more students to pass? I wish I could say we answered all of these
questions completely, but there is definitely still some room for improvement
in the answer that we agreed upon. Katie’s answer is strong in that it truly
allows for evaluation of each student’s unique qualities, as opposed to their
test taking skills. At first we discussed the idea of a presentation, but
presentations are biased towards those who are adept at presenting, and not
necessarily those who are knowledgeable, so what we ultimately leaned towards
was a portfolio.
The idea of a portfolio is
definitely a unique one, they’re often only used to grade class by class, and
they could still be used for this. A teacher would still be able to give out a
grade based on the student’s class portfolio which could include everything
from tests they’ve taken (or could be graded along with in-class
non-standardized tests they’ve taken) to projects, and it would be all
encompassing. One of the original problems I had with the presentation idea was
that not every college is going to want to sit through presentations, and sift
through various portfolios. The idea of a portfolio would likely lead to more
work on the part of colleges, but it could also eliminate needs for
standardized tests, and could in turn would allow for teacher approved and
verified work to be handed in. What I mean by verified is hypothetically, the
teacher could hand in a description of the assignment along with a verification
that the assignment the student was handing in wasn’t changed after its due
date.
The big thing with the idea of
handing in portfolios is that it puts a lot of responsibilities in to the hands
of teachers and is very subjective. Teachers often feel affectionate towards
students, and take pride in their own students. If you leave such a large
portion of grading up to the teachers, it would be theoretically possible that
their subjectivity, especially in non-standardized things like oral
presentations would be graded higher than they should be. It would take a lot
of trust in the objectivity from a teacher for these grades to be evaluated,
but even still the work that would be turned into the college, or employer could
be evaluated by them without thoughts from the teacher.
Another issue that arose is that
there would be a lot of difference amongst students. They’d all have these
individual projects that probably are all over the place in terms of subjects
and yes, this would allow for them to demonstrate the skills they wanted to
show, but it wouldn’t highlight their shortcomings and area’s they needed to
work on as much. Showing what you’re good at in education is just as important
as knowing what you need to work on. If a student was adept at making movies,
there’s a good chance that every individual assignment he/she would do would be
catered to that skill. It’s not necessarily a bad thing when you think about
the student utilizing a skill that will allow them to have a future in that
industry, but what if the student decides later that it is not what he or she
truly enjoys? Then they would be behind because they’ve spent so much training
time devoted to one skill, they may not be so adept at doing things like debating,
or publicly speaking.
I think one of the important things
about a public education is the multiplicity of things taught and how they’re
taught. You’re never taught everything the same way and there is a lot of
different skills to be taken from things learned that are presented to you in
fact, but are utilized in the shapes of presentations and tests later. This
multiplicity allows for options in the future, regardless of whether or not you
excelled at them when you first started doing them.
It’s
also important to keep in mind that the responsibility put on the teachers to
objectively grade, come up with all the projects, and essentially guide a
student towards where they want to go in life will not be met without
contention. We’re so focused on the rhetoric of saying “we don’t trust teachers
enough” that we often forget how incredibly important trusting teachers can be.
What I mean by this is; there’s a reason this is a highly contested debate,
people don’t want to leave their children with just anyone, and to leave them
with people that will ultimately have so much influence? You better make sure
the people are equipped to guide them.
So in order for a portfolio plan to work
I think there would have to be more than just the portfolio. Ever notice the
people who curse the SAT’s so often are the people that didn’t do as well as
they hoped? They forget the SAT’s are the saving grace for a lot of students
that can demonstrate ability on them (like me). I know I may be in the
minority, but without them I would’ve never have made it to this college, and I
would argue with you to the death that I belong to be here. It would not be bad
to continue to utilize some of the things already in place as an accurate
measurement of a student’s complete picture as well as a portfolio. GPA, SAT, a
portfolio, and a body of extra-curricular activity would be, in my opinion, a
solid representation of a student.
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