Assessment
and Evaluation of Students’ Learning
Assessment
is a part of teaching and learning process. After implementing our methods in
teaching, we have to measure students’ understanding by assessing them whether
our teaching is success. One thing that has to be considered is assessing is
not as simply as giving a number of score. Some tasks can be assessed by just
giving a score quickly, such as multiple choices, short answer, and soon. However,
how about drawing task, the essay, or performance task? Will we just think for
a moment and give a number for the score then? Of course not, so it needs to be
cleared in “how” we scoring them. It needs process to be scored, it is kind an
unfair assessment.
Another
thing that must be thought is the objectiveness, have we assessed them
objectively? How to do it? One of the ways to assess our students objectively
is using rubric. Many people say that using rubric will give the most objective
score because so many aspects/items that considered to be scored. It’s really
different if you don’t use rubric, let say you give the same score for two
different-students’-work. Then, what will you say if one of them asks you about
it? Will you just say “because your work is great, and his work is great too.”
Meanwhile if you use rubric, you can explain them why they get the same score, also
the students will know and focus on the aspects that will be scored in the
rubric.
To improve students’ thought about logic, we
can make an assessment like performance task. We challenge them to present some
topics about logic to be performed. For having an effective performance,
Gronlund (2006) noted that we have to consider some procedural steps, there
are:
1.
Specifying
the performance outcomes. We have to determine what we
want from the students, so they will not get confuse about what should they do,
also they will know the limit of performance that should they present (not
exaggerate).
2.
Selecting
the focus of the assessment (procedure, product, or both). It’s
like a clear assessment, so we can make rubric, and then the students will know
the aspect that will be assessed.
3.
Selecting
an appropriate degree of realism. It’s for limiting the
students to don’t be exaggerated, so they will realize the performance in the
context.
4.
Selecting
the performance situation. We need to consider the timing,
it’s like when the performance task should be done, don’t give this kind of
assessment when the students have a lot of works, so they can focus on this
task. If we force them, it will affect the successful of this assessment
itself.
5.
Selecting
the method of observing, recording, and scoring. We have
to decide the method which easier for us to assess them, if we need to record
their performance, it will be better because we can play the recorder anytime
we want, also the student can reflect on their performance.
Another kind of assessment to challenge their
logic is portfolio; it’s a collection of students’ work which shows students’
thought and their progress during the learning process. By challenge them to
make a portfolio, it also will challenge students’ thought logically. Some
objectives from portfolio are:
1. Appreciating students’ progress.
We can appreciate all students for their achievement in finishing this work
because every single student has his/her own thought.
2. Documenting learning process that
occurs. The teacher can see all students’ ability by
assessing their portfolio, it makes teacher easier to evaluate them one by one.
3. Reflecting students’ capable in
taking a risk. It trains the students to responsible on
their work because portfolio provides opportunities for the students to
evaluate and reflect on their work.
4. Increasing the effectiveness in
learning process. By having portfolio, it helps the teacher
to provide another kind of assessment to the students, so it challenges the
students and doesn’t assess them in ordinary way (let say paper-and-pencil
test).
All in all, we can assess the students’ not
only by paper-and-pencil test but performance and portfolio. By doing
performance and portfolio, it will increase students’ understanding and makes
them think logically to present the logic topic in another way (not answering
some questions on the paper). However, do not forget to let them know about the
aspects that will be assessed to be their reference, so they will know what
should they do, and also know the limitation for doing the work for not
exaggerating.
source: Majid, A. (2008). PERENCANAAN PEMBELAJARAN, Mengembangkan Standar Kompetensi Guru. Bandung: ROSDA.
