Evaluation Versus Assessment

Evaluation Versus Assessment

Another question that is crucial to understanding the changes in education today is the concept of Assessment versus Evaluation.  Assessment is a process and evaluation is an act. Assessment is ongoing and evaluation is a picture of a snapshot in time.  In any classroom, a good classroom teacher is assessing his or her students and their work and progress all the time, We are assessing for growth and growth is ongoing or it should be. We have a variety of different ways of making assessment of student growth. These include observations, asking questions, looking at work in progress, testing knowledge gained, asking for performances of some kind to demonstrate new knowledge and so forth.  WE need to be keeping records on each student, as an individual, and not as a member of a class.  This is different from Evaluation.  WE have an obligation to report to parents about how their child is doing and doing this reporting periodically.  It has to be periodic because some weeks can go by when the student is working very well and then something can happen at home or with a friend or within the child and so progress slows or stops completely. Students need to know what we will be saying to parents because they want to know what is being said about them.  But there should be no surprises for students when it comes time to report to parents because if we gave beeb properly assessing students, we have been talking to them about progress, questioning ups and downs and making judgements about their strengths and weaknesses.  I remember a particular year teaching a group of student with more than one or two who believed they were much smarter and better than I was judging them to be. They wanted to do next to nothing and be rewarded for that lack of effort. I was trying to rectify that belief.  I had to fail a student in a particular subject because he had done almost nothing. The father came in and all but accused me of not treating his son fairly.  I had to explain what was going on and then I had student work based upon the same assignment and shared that with the father so that he could see what his son had NOT done compared to what another boy of equal opportunity HAD done.  Having been able to show the father what his son was trying to get away with for finished work made ALL the difference in the world.  So evaluation is what we communicate to parents about their children on their report cards or on a phone call or at a parent-teacher interview. If we are going to be fair to the students, we need to have enough meaningful data to support our analysis and value judgements.  We need to ensure teachers and parents understand that there is a difference between Assessment and Evaluation and we need to work at gathering enough evidence so that we have data to support our prognostications.