Week 7 - Personal perceptions on assessment (Professional Blog)

One of the many life-size buddhas

This week in my blog I want to reflect on my own conceptions (and indeed perceptions) of assessment. I have found the assessment module here at HKIEd very interesting and feel that this is primarily due to the lecturer who, not only makes the topic relevant and applicable, but also focuses on the different assessment practices all over the world, in particular America (where he is from) and obviously Hong Kong.

In essence, there are only three fundamental purposes for assessment – to improve teaching and learning, to make schools and teachers accountable, and to make students accountable. Consequently, a teacher’s personal perception of assessment has an impact on how he will interpret and put into practice the assessment process in the classroom environment.

After designing our own assessment tool as a group, I have deduced that low scores may be a function of poor assessment practices; for example, the assessment is not aligned to the teaching, items may have been poorly written or the meaning of the student performances may have been interpreted poorly. In essence therefore, teachers should initially consider if perhaps their assessment practices were to blame before investigating the matter further. Indeed, if the assessment process was sound, then instead of blaming students (they did not study hard enough) or society (the students have poor parents so cannot learn enough) we as prospective teachers, must evaluate and consider that our own teaching approach may need to change. Subsequently, for this to happen, we as teachers must have the belief that the primary purpose of assessment is for improvement (for both the student in terms of their learning and the teacher in terms of the teaching methods they adopt), not accountability of students or schools. 

The assessment system in Hong Kong is highly selective. To many Hong Kong students, assessment is regarded as a hurdle that they should conquer to enter a good school and ultimately get a good job. Therefore education is viewed in Hong Kong as ‘education for earning not learning’ (Lee, 1991).

In Hong Kong there is a deeply rooted examination culture, however in recent years there has been a shift in regards to an assessment reform agenda that has focused on ‘assessment for learning’ and formative assessments whilst retaining the importance of summative assessments. With an increased emphasis in schools on ‘assessment for learning’ teachers seek to identify and diagnose student learning problems and provide students with quality feedback so they can improve in their learning as well as teaching. In regards to assessment, teachers are encouraged to use a variety of assessment methods which will provide a comprehensive understanding of student learning. This is underpinned by the belief that every student has potential in different ways to learn.

I remember studying this last year at Stranmillis and the contemporary debate about the roles of formative and summative assessment in the Northern Ireland Curriculum, with much research literature advocating that the former is appropriate while the latter is not.

However, what I realised last year when studying this debate is that there is a role and function for both forms of assessment   - a concept that has been reinforced here in my studies at HKIEd. Assessment for learning involves the teacher and child in a continual review about progress with the objective of improving learning, not to prove it. Too much focus and use of summative assessment turns out to be detrimental to learners who are struggling; teachers should instead set achievable targets for every individual within their classroom and put the emphasis on learning rather than grades or marks. As a prospective teacher, I feel that it is important to view both types of assessment as complementary approaches, as the use of assessment for learning can help pupils perform better on summative assessment tasks and summative assessment can reflect the impact of assessment for learning.

Allen and I raising the roof!

Outside of my studies this week,  I am pleased to report back that after (somehow) making it into the final of the karaoke competition,  Allen and I finished runners-up with a much improved, classic performance of greased lightning. We have tried to implement what has been taught to us in our assessment module...Rachel providing us with some valid feedback and suggestions for improvement (assessment for learning!) which resulted in  Allen and I improving drastically in the final with a runners up position (assessment of learning!)

Runners up!

I also went to rugby training this week with the university which was good, especially as I don’t play sevens very often back home. The pitches here in Hong Kong are much harder and don’t have much grass (because the pitch is being used every day of the week) so the prospect of getting tackled isn’t appealing but this added an extra spring to my step when I received the ball!

The nine-story pagoda for which the monastery is famous.

I also visited the Ten thousand Buddhas on Friday in Sha Tin. After trekking up 400 steps with Buddha statues on either side of the path, we finally got to the top. At the top, the actual temple houses little golden Buddhas, all with unique poses. The giant Kwan Yu and Guan Yin statues outside were not too shabby either!

Standing with the statues outside.

 On Saturday it was one of the international students birthdays and after dinner at the infamous Mr. Wong’s we went to do some karaoke (which is very popular in Hong Kong).....it was on the 51^st floor and the view of the city from inside was fantastic!

The International students at a masquerade party!

This week the Robert Black Halls Spring Dinner takes place on Thursday evening which is the biggest event for halls students during the year. I am really looking forward to this and I will let you know how I get on in my blog next week. 

Until next time...

Joi Gin (Goodbye)

Michael

The Hall C contingent at the karaoke.