martes, 14 de enero de 2014

Assessment through portfolios


Assessment is the process of documenting, often times in measurable terms, knowledge, skills and attitudes. A clearer definition would be: `Assessment is the action of assessing someone or something´. (Oxford dictionary, 2014)

 For a student, the evaluation is a final test or tests where it is shown what they have learned in a course, obtaining a numerical rating according to his learning. Professor always be responsible for assessing each student.But, what is assess? `Leaving a note is to evaluate, test is to evaluate the registration of the notes is called evaluation. At the same time several meanings are attributed to the term performance analysis, performance evaluation, capacity measure, student appreciation´. (Hoffman, 1999)

There are different assessment instruments used to evaluate the progress of student learning, such as, oral questions and tests, or making work or portfolios. I am going to focus on this last, because the portfolio seems me, as a future teacher, a very useful tool for working certain competences. Portfolio is a assessment method where the child is going collecting notes, activities, own thoughts, additional information outside the classroom, ect. And end of the course, the teacher can correct it and check the level of student involvement and interest in the subject. With this tool, teachers can follow student´s progress and help them to improve their daily work and settle their doubts. Thanks to this, the student is directly responsible for their own learning. Another advantage of portfolios is that both parents and teachers can become more involved in the learning process of the child. The school may have a computer platform, where the child will be updating their portfolios and where parents and teacher can comment on each entry and help him with ideas.

In my opinion, the portfolio motivates the student more than a test. In addition, a exam can be approved on a high note but the student can forget everything learned in less than a week, since he only memorized it, but the lesson is not assimilated. Both assessment methods should be used in a subject, being worth the same percentage to when evaluating.
All teachers should use  this tool. It seems me a magnificent method of evaluation!
 
Reference:
HOFFMAN, J. (1999), “Cap. 1: “Evaluación y construcción del conocimiento”: La evaluación: mito y desafío: una perspectiva constructivista”, Mediaçäo, Porto Alegre.




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