TESTING

In order to understand what is assessment and what is evaluation we have to know both definitions. And also, to understand what is testing.

Evaluation, is all-inclusive and it goes beyond student achievement and language assessment, evaluation considers all aspects of teaching and learning and to look at how educational decisions can be informed by the results of alternative forms of assessment

In the other hand, Assessment, is part of evaluation, and it considers everything that involves the student, assessment refers to the different ways of collecting data on a learner’s language ability or achievement.

Testing is a subcategory of assessment. A test is a formal, systematic. (Usually Pencil-Papper) and are used to collect information about students behaviors and knowledge.

Testing and assessment have been used as synonyms, but, as we could notice, assessment is of set of measures to evaluate. And tests are a one way process which allows instructors to realize what students are doing or not.
Before get in to the types of test, we have to differentiate them and their purposes. Test are used in different stages of the course to gather information about student

As language teacher  our  responsibility is deciding  the best option for our particular group of students in a particular teaching context. It is useful to categorize assessments by type, purpose, or place within the teaching/learning process or timing.

Language testing at any level is a highly complex undertaking that must be based on theory as well as practice. We have to know the nine cornerstones of testing and what does every single one of them involves.

To finish. I would like to state that most of teacher follow similar paters of evaluation where test has not enough importance in the learning process. In order to evaluate it has to be set different tools that will allow the student to realized of what he did. And also, to collect the correct data to compare with other schools and even scholar sistem.

MINERVA MODEL SURVEY AND PORTFOLIO AS AN ASSESSMENT TOOL

The Minerva Model Survey I desing is meant to analize the elements on the teaching-learning process, but also, to show how much our students know about the model they are involved in.
Also in what extent they are aware of what the university expects from them. And what is not only their rol, but also if they can recognize the rol of the teacher.

This checklist is made to enlist what products are inside the portfolio, and if they were done.

Esteban Sánchez Corona
Learning Assessment Checklist
No.	Task Name (Product)
1	Communicative Competence (Concept Map)	ü
2	Communicative Competence (Video)	ü
3	Formative and Summative Assessment (Concept Map)	ü
4	Formative and Summative Assessment (Video)	ü
5	Portfolio, Concept Maps and Rubrics (Concept Map)	ü
6	Portfolio, Concept Maps and Rubrics (Video)
7	Rubrics use and Development (Reflection, Rubric Model)	ü
8	Minerva Model Survey and Portfolio as Assessment tool (Survey Model and Reflection)	ü

How does the bog work for the teacher, classmates and yourself?
The blog is used for the teacher as an assessment tool, provides with evidence of what has been done during the course. Also, trough this blog, the teacher will be able to give the grade students earn with their work, since they were previously provide with the rubric of what every product should fufil. This portfolio is the way he evaluates his students.

For classmates, the blog is used to have some feedback, this will help them to modify, correct and improve their work during the course. It will also promote co-evaluation, everytime students comment on an entry of the blog of their classmates, they will realized of the mistakes they are making and probably they did not realized they were.

From my own perspective, the blog is used as a learning tool. I have never used this kind of tool, I'm learning so much not only from my teacher, but also from my classmates. Everytime a see a positive comment in motivates me to keep doing something in the exact same way. And when something it is wrong I will try to fix it, in order to not only satisfy the demands of who reads my blog or who evaluates it, but rather my own expectatives and all this process will be part of my self assesment. Now I am aware of what aspects should be improve and what others should be done in the same way.

To what extent does it match in practice what you read?

In fact, everything we read about during the course was taking to practice when we develop things like discussions, concept maps, videos, rubrics and surveys. Also, every topic was related to the previous one, so that made very easly to understad what we were doing and why. Every single one of these tool are desing for assess, and also were part of the program. So everything we read was match in practice.


Would you implement it in your own classes? Why? Or why not?

I would do it. Since students now days are used to the use of computers, smarth phones and other electronical devises, they will find this way of working realy interesting. I will also use it because is a way to promote self and co evaluation. Students will have a chance to things twice, the first one will be a draft, and the second one they will improve some aspects according to what their classmates commented. Finally the teacher will give the definitive feedback and will provide students with the grade the earn, according to the rubric which was previously given to students.

RUBRIC USE AND DEVELOPMENT

RUBRIC USE AND DEVELOPMENT

A rubric is an evaluation tool that help students to understand better what is expected from them in an activity. Also, it is the way we show students and parents what is the purpose of what they are doing. This tool is useful for students in order to realize what is going to be assessed and how they can achieve it.

There are two kinds of rubrics, they are Holistic and Analytic. In order to use one of this type of rubric, first we must be aware of which one will be useful for every activity.

Holistic rubrics are the ones who describe students' work as a single score. This means that work will be graded just once and it does not provide or require extensive feedback. This is an example of summative assesment.

Analytic rubrics, in the other hand, are desing to grade every stage of performance given specific feedback to students, and finally will gave us a final score.

It is important for us as teacher to use rubrics in order to make things easier not only for students but also for us, this makes evaluation easier , sincer students know what are paying attention in. It also provides standars to students, which will be usefull during certification, as we know, they are made of standars that aspirants should be able to fufill

In this case, I desinged my own rubric, wich is an analytic rubric. My rubric is desing to evaluate an oral presentation. I decided to do my rubric on oral presentation because we are focusing on communicative competence.
I included aspects of language production, but also the way they connect ideas and how students use their languange resourses.

Since this is my first time working with rubrics, Rubistar is an awesome tool, this allow experienceless rubric desingners to have a model to follow. And not only with the aspect that will be evaluated but also with the grades or the criteria that could be given in each aspect. The only problema with rubristar is the format. you can just simply save your rubric, but rather you have save it several times in order to keep editing it. Another important issue is the amount of time that this tool gives us. I have to save my rubric reveral times in order to keep editing because Rubistar only offers 40 minutes.

Finally, I find really useful the model that is proposed in the articule. "Rubrics use and development" because as the title says, provides to readers enough information to develop their own rubric, which is also useful not only for begginers but also for those who want to polish their rubric development skills.

PORTFOLIOS, RUBRICS AND CONCEPT MAPPING

PORTFOLIOS, RUBRICS AND CONCEPT MAPPING

Today we are taking a look at some tools that make formative assessment possible.
As we know, formative assessment is focus on the instructional process, these tools help us to realize whether the students are learning or not, were they are having problemas and to follow the learning process


First we have Rubrics, as we know rubrics are designed to make our students understand what we expect about them and with what kind of quality. Rubrics are designed by the teacher according to his preferences, and what he think will be effective for learning.
The spider concept map, will help you to understand this tool.

Concept Mapping is for constructing, organizing and communicating knowledge. Is used a visual guide to understand a topic and make emphasis in concepts. On of his purposes is to link old knowledge with new one. There are different kinds of Maps but they share some features like: The use of figures, Lines, arrows and connect all this through linking words or phrases. The following map, is an example of how to use this tool and also will help you to understand how are they made of.

Finally. Portafolios are the way we collect data or products from our students. This tool will help us to observe the progress on their work. This is consider one of the purest and authentic forms of assessment. Now, the following map will help you to understand some characteristics of portafolios

While doing this maps I learnt who important are tools in the assessment process, since assessment requires evidence, this tools while provide us with resources to realize if our students are learning and how fast they are doing it

I realized of the efficiency of these techniques, because i have been doing maps, following a rubric and saving all this evidence in my electronic portfolio. I also have been learning a lot by rewriting the information.

SUMMATIVE AND FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Summative and Formative Assessment

Firstly I want to state what assessment is. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines assessment as "the act of making a judge about something". But, from a teacher perspective is "the act of evaluate students' progress on a specific ability". In this case and As I previously talked about, communicative competence.
In the following video I'm talking about assesment deeply. Thanks for watching

 

While doing this video I realized of the importance of both process as a unique assessment type. We can not only focus on giving grades or providing a lot of feed, we must have to give a grade according to feed. According to how much they have improved. And make our students be able to evaluate themselves, in order to generate metacognitive strategies.

FORMATIVE AND SUMMATIVE ASSESMENT MAP

Today I want to share with you guys, what I have learned about assessment, and the two major types of it.

There are two major types of assessment, which are Formative and Summative.

Formative assessment it is focused on providing feedback without real consequences. Also the focus is on the process rather than the grade. Some examples of formative assessmente are reviewing homework and classroom work; observing students as they read, work with others, carry out assignments, or solve problems; talking with students; and listening to student responses during a lesson.

In the other hand, Summative assessment focuses in provide an overall measure of performance. The process is focused on passing a grade. Some examples of summative assessments are: tests, final exams, graded projects, work portfolios, PSAT exams and SAT and ACT exams, ungraded quizzes and porfolio review

Now, let's take a look at the concept map to understand better what is assessment and the types of it.

This is my second time doing concept maps, and honestly I think this time my map was better. It was much easier to do it and organized information, taking into consideration the previous feedback from my classmates. This is a task which is still challenging but I am trying to do it better and I hope to see your comments below.

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Hey guys this is my video. I am talking about communicative competence, what I learned and understood from the reading and the videos we saw. So, here it is.




While doing this video I realized how hard it is actually speak in front of a camera and remmeber information, I did some cards with keywords that helped me to remember some things. I hope to see your comments and to do it a hundred times better next.

COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE MAP

As we could see, Communicative Competence comprehence a lot of features. But, What is exactly communicaive competence?

Well, this competence are abilities that alows us to communicate under certain circumstances, situation, or conditions that are stablish by the speakers, in order to do it efficently, clearly and without any misunderstanding.
There some models about what does actually Communicative Competece is made of, most of them share some features with small changes in complexity of some features or in wich area should them be placed.
Communicative Competence have been understood as many things, as "abilities" as "capabilities" but, as a conclution of what Communicative Competence are. I belive this are a set of abilities, strategies and capabilities that speakers and specially second language learners must improve.
Coming up next, my conceptual map will give you an idea of how are Communicative Compeltence models made of.

 

While doing this conceptual map, I realized how important it's to modify our teaching styles. Languange is firstly spoken. But this does not make it easy, we have to focus our teaching styles in fulfill this communicative need. We are focusing in many aspects of communication, but in order to make our students improve their language abilities, we must star working with them since the very first moment. As Jack C. Richards says in his video, CAPACITY, FLUENCY, ACURRACY, COMPLEXITY, APPROPIACY and CAPACITY are aspects that must be improve, starting with acurracy, to make language as correct and acurate as possible. Next, Fluency, in order to manipulate all his language resourses he must be able to follow a conversation as naturally as he can. Later on, working with language Complexity, will make our students able to improve the way they use language, by using different tenses and new and specific vocabulary. Appropiacy will make our students not only speak propperly, but also, understand other cultures and how they use langauge. And last but not least , Capacity, Capacity will give our students resourses to talk about something, express feeling, thoughts and also make a conversation about any thing they want.

I must say it, before reading a bit more about this method, I was not one hundred percent convinced about his usefulness, but now, probably is one of the methods in which i wan to teach my students.