How Should We Use Our Assessment Results?

It is important for all teachers to use assessments in their classrooms. But there are many different ways we can use these results in the classroom. One thing that this chapter focused on was praising students and reinforcing effort.

Reinforcing effort involves explicitly teaching students about the relationship between effort and achievement. It is important that teachers acknowledge students' efforts when they work hard to achieve something, in this case, when they work hard to do well on a test. Once students start to see the results of working hard, such as a good grade on a test, they will begin to change their attitudes and beliefs about themselves and their ability to learn. They will learn to persevere when a task is difficult and success is not immediate.

There has been a debate on whether praise will affect students intrinsic motivation or if it promotes student engagement and decreases behavioral problems. According to the book, teachers must learn to use praise with caution. It is also important that teachers provide feedback on assessments before they return them to students, but pointing out incorrect answers and following that up with noninstructive feedback, such as telling the student to work harder in order to get the correct answer, will result in students will learn to attribute their success or lack of success on factors outside of their control, such as luck. This type of feedback is ineffective because it does not provide students with information that will help increase their effort, engagement, or belief in their abilities.

Another important topic that this chapter discussed was tracking assessment results. This helps students focus on the learning objective, what it takes to achieve that objective, and their progress towards meeting that objective.

The article that I chose for this week suggests that when it comes to student learning, it is not just about what they know. It's also about what they know about what they know. The emphasis in most skills is placed on what students need to learn, but little emphasis is placed on how students need to learn and what skills will promote efficient studying. This article relates to using our assessment results because it is important that students know how to study for assessments and know how to best learn the material that is being taught. Teachers need to provide praise for students and teach them how to learn material. If students in a class have performed poorly on an assessment, it may be because they did not know how to learn the material. Providing praise and using assessment results appropriately are both important in the classroom.