Chang's EDT 626 Reflective Blog

In the past two weeks, we have explored a lot of new trend of assessments, personalized assessments, and how technology kicks in to assist with learning in order for students to achieve the best learning outcome. The changing of assessments is about changing our entire approach to information, about recognizing that having content knowledge is insufficient so we must understand how it is accessed, stored, managed, retrieved, and manipulated. The changing nature of educational goals; the relationship between assessment and teaching and learning, and the limitations of the current methods of recording performance and reporting credit are the three factors that demand the assessment reform. While we are used to backward design assessment, new trend of assessments enable students and teachers to use assessment for learning. Authentic assessment, real-time assessment, peer assessment, as well as self assessment come in different forms to support learning from different perspectives. W...

In the past two weeks, I have learned about different perspectives and models of assessment that helps me shape my view on how to best use different kinds of assessment to facilitate better learning outcome. As Dr. William mentioned, most important instructional decisions in classrooms are not taken by teachers, but taken by students. We should put learners at the heart of the process. Formative assessment is not a process that's done by teachers to students, but it's led by teachers and done with students to engage students and their own learning. What I also find very inspiring is the comparison between traditional assessment and future assessment. Assessment is thought of as a separate event traditionally like the end of term grading, yet assessment is critical for our instruction in search of improving teaching and student learning. So the current features of assessment are more embedded, on-going, personalized, and student-centered over the course of their learning. ...