Assessment and Peanuts

Continuing on the quest to develop my own understanding and perception of assessment I have diligently been working through all of the steps on the 6 year old Wiki page provided. The one thing that has stuck with me most was a monologue from the cartoon strip Peanuts, 1972.

Peanuts 1972

This really ties into the question I am aiming to create and answer for my 5500 word essay. As an Arts teacher I really do have to question how I am qualified to mark performances, compositions and other original works. If I was asked to mark John Cage on his composition "4:33" what would I have awarded him? Personally I'm still struggling to come to terms with a mark I received for a drawing of a trainer nearly 18 years ago.

Can anyone mark fairly? Can a fair assessment be created? What stops an assessment from being fair? Do we design the assessment or the teaching sequence first? Does the curriculum create the assessment or vice versa?

One enormous problem from my own perspective is that we have all of these wonderful researchers and innovative educators who question what we are doing, conduct research, present their findings and then we can't quite seem to make it fit. Schools often engage in a school improvement plan that focuses on raising student achievement. The problems encountered could be that the staff are just not on board with the changes or in most cases we are trying to do something so different that it just doesn't fit society's needs and preconceived notions about assessment. Proof, evidence, grades, certificates, ranking, national standards etc.

Written are used internationally because they can be controlled in terms of environment, resources and time. Consequently we are generally happy to consider this type of assessment as fair. When preparing students for timed examinations you end up spending a portion of your time teaching them how to sit the exam. Time management is important, but being able to use information to solve problems and or create something is surely more so. These timed assessments cannot help but have a bias towards recall and speed. Whether we like it or not we are assessing a student's ability to memorise facts and how fast they can write legibly. 

An interesting anecdote about some research into questions in assessment created a Science test for 11, 13 and 15 year old students. The 15 year old students out performed the younger students when questions were presented in a context that was familiar to them. However, when a question appeared that put what they had been taught in an unfamiliar setting the older students did not attain the highest results and the gap between the ages was lessened. This sort of question does give a real opportunity to show their cognitive ability and process.

Assessing cognitive ability may appear nigh on impossible as we can only assess what we can see. This unfortunately then puts us back towards traditional testing methods that I am starting to like less and less. Having said this if a test is marked externally and or moderated we should get a fair mark. Should being the operative word here.

This weekend has led me to reconsider what and how I assess and to question where I am starting from. It is also difficult to detach from your own personal experience of assessment. Perceptions cloud our judgement no matter how hard we try to avoid prejudice and be open minded.