Assessments How I Feel ABout Them

“….Special ed law embraces the “disability is natural” paradigm, and requires schools to educate children with disabilities in general ed classes and provide them with the assistive technology, supports, and modifications they need to be successful…” (Snow, 2003) Without assessments this statement would hold no meaning for children that don’t have a visible disability. Not all disabilities can be seen with the eye, that is why I feel that assessments are a good source of information regarding children’s development and if they might need additional support in their personal and educational lives. I even feel that  gifted children need to have assessments done to actually see how gifted they are and also if they are mentally stable enough to handle the pressure of the additional requirements for a gifted program. I had my son tested for the gifted program at the suggestion of his teacher. She felt that he was not being challenged enough in her class because he learned faster than the other children and got bored in the class easily. Me personal I thought he might be ADHAD, his score was like five points away from what is required for the gifted program but the school put him in the class anyway and I’m proud to say he is at the top of his class and doesn’t get into trouble anymore.  My son has be measured and assessed since he was born. He was born at 26 weeks gestational time after being without a water bag for 18 days. I’m happy that they did all those test to make sure he was well. They released him from the “preterm clinic” at the age of 3 because he was advance for his age and able to do things that 4 and 5 year olds were tested on. The 1st picture is when my son was 2 weeks old and the first time I got to hold him without him being connected to machines and wrapped up like a tamale. The 2nd picture is my son at 11 years old and in the 5th grade doing very well.

I chose Africa to learn more about the assessments in school age children. I have a best friend from Africa and I like to learn new information about her country.

The use of assessment to improve the quality of education in African education systems over the past two decades are described in four categories of assessment: public examinations, national assessments, international assessments, and classroom assessment.

Public Examination:

Public (external) examinations have played a major role throughout the history of modern education in Africa. They serve a number of functions, the most important of which is to select students for successive levels in the education system. Despite their central role, many criticisms have been made of their quality. In particular, it has been observed that examinations are limited in the areas of knowledge and skills that they assess; they contain little reference to the knowledge and skills that students need in their everyday life outside the school; and they tend to measure achievement at a low taxonomic level.

 National Assesments:

While public examinations are a long-standing feature of education systems,

national assessments (sometimes called system assessments, learning assessments, or less
appropriately assessments of learning outcomes) are relatively new. A national
assessment may be defined as an exercise designed to describe the level of achievements,
not of individual students, but of a whole education system, or a clearly defined part of it
(e.g., fourth grade pupils or 11-year olds).

International Assessments:

International assessments differ from national assessments in that they can provide some indication of where the achievements of students in a country stand relative to the achievements of students in other countries.

Classroom Assessments:

The assessment of students’ learning in the classroom (both by teachers and by students themselves) is an integral component of the teaching-learning process. Much of this kind of assessment is subjective, informal, immediate, on-going, and intuitive, as it interacts with learning as it occurs, monitoring student behavior, scholastic performance, and responsiveness to instruction. Its role is to determine students’ current level of knowledge, skill, or understanding, to diagnose problems they may be encountering, to make decisions about the next instructional steps to take (to revise or to move on), and to evaluate the learning that has taken place in a lesson.

References:

Kellaghan, T. & Greaney, V. Monitoring performance assessment and examinations in Africa. Retrieved from:

http://toolkit.ineesite.org/toolkit/INEEcms/uploads/1089/Monitoring_Performance_Assessment_Examinations.pdf

Snow, K. (2003-2009). Redefining disability. Retrieved from http://www.disabilityisnatural.com/images/PDF/redefindis.pdfl