Finally!

Hats off to my entire classmate, we made it! This semester has been very challenging for me as a full time employee because I have to juggle work and acads, but I know everyone feels the same regardless if you’re a full time employee or full time student and everything in between. Lockdown has given me the opportunity to catch up some activities and omg! Mission accomplished!

During lockdown, I am pretty sure, everyone made time to go through the readings, provide the class with their take on the content of the module, and share their opinions and ideas. In spite of having health crisis, we are still very active in the class.

However, despite the challenges, everyone finished the course, made last-minute posts, and wished everyone good luck in the days to come.

While there have been difficulties, there were way more learning’s gained, teamwork developed, and friendships formed. From differentiating between evaluation and assessment, to the components aspects of the said subject, and down to the strategies using these tools, everyone went through the same journey and in the end, everyone walked out with a value-added. Knowing the importance of assessment cycle is also important to me. I am more confident now on leading teams in my department/job due to what I have acquired in this course.

On this note, I believe it is essential to give due credit to the professor, Dr. Lou, for putting up with us, the students, and for making the course easier to understand. We saw how you worked on developing your own module for each topic and it was really great reading each and every module and understanding each and every word. Concepts and its content may be confusing at times but the modules you prepared were specifically designed for learners like us and for that, I really would like to thank you. Thank you for making it easier for us.

Lastly, I would also like to thank my group and the whole class because each one put something on the table. I learned something from each one of you. Thank you for a wonderful semester and I hope, we all get the grade that we are aiming for.

Smile God bless us all.

Grades means a lot to the students because it can easily recognize their position in the class. If the student gets lower grades, some would tend to work hard to achieve higher grades but how about students who are demotivated because their efforts go awry?

 Focusing on the measurement of giving grades do matters actually. It has a major impact on their future so students are eager to do their best. While grade becomes motivational tool for students, whether or not they’re succeeding, it is clearly the result of how learning has been taught. Whether positive or negative, feedback are always the major tool to make or break the student’s learning. It is vital to develop student’s learning and skills.

Feedbacks were made to identify issues that need to be improved. Positive feedback can give students a sense of evaluating their own works and identify where your attention should be focused. Additionally, this could be used as a guide for the students about what they have done. While students have their own weaknesses and strength, giving positive criticism is a great way to fulfill self-development and as the students are receiving and reviewing feedbacks, it can give positive changes to make their focus and results improved and to be able to produce higher quality learning.

Rubrics will always have a special place inside the class. Rubrics are used for grading or scoring academic activities. It should be match the performance to the description.

To sum up, rubrics are the best way to assess the types of performances whether it could be from curriculum goals, instructional goals. This is used as indicator of learning outcomes. Educators are more focus on the performances instead of judging them. That is why rubrics are essential for both students and teachers. Students will know to what extent their performance must do to reflect, analyze and improve the quality of their work. Using rubrics gives opportunity to use the feedback and grades can create transparency based on the evaluation of the teachers through student’s end product of assignments and projects.

Assessment has always been the big picture in how students learn. I believe it is the most reliable tool of the teachers to be able to measure the knowledge acquired by the students. My thoughts regarding this topic gave me a full understanding what assessment really is and how this motivates learning.

As a student, aside from what I have learned during the course, measuring our performances in the class can help develop our personal skills and abilities too. I enjoyed the teachers-students engagement because I know it is the most essential tool to be a good learner. There are a numbers of different ways of assessing us to get better and their feedback becomes my source of strength to be more attentive and focus to my learning objectives whether traditional or non-traditional assessment. Feedbacks may sound negatively but it works a lot to improve the process of learning

I remember how I started working my personal difficulties. There are some factors influenced how I chose to prepare for an upcoming assessment. My fear is when I can’t cope up with all the readings, schedules and deadlines and be left behind because of the hectic schedule of trainings I have to attend at work. I know how difficult it is for me to balance my work and my studies but I tend to manage it positively especially when exams and activities are nearly coming. I prepared my notes by summarizing it all and focus on my study habits. For this course, at this point, I am a bit intimidated and that I might fell short of the teacher’s expectations. But anyhow, I will do my very best.

Any new activities that are given to the students are out weighted by the feeling of excitement and the eagerness to learn something new and some of it may be threatening to learners especially when the students are not feeling prepared to answers all the questions being raised by the teachers.

As a future educator, I would rather use a variety of assessment types to get the most accurate evidence to assess the student’s level of understanding. I will also provide some activities that will help me easily to recognize their strength and weakness. From this, I could assess them depending on how well they are aligned with circumstances. I will use non-traditional assessment to measure what students learn, what their interests are without giving a variety of questionnaires or having quiz or exam. I will focus to their responses because I know it will lead to overall improvements in the learner’s knowledge, skills and self-confidence. I fervently hope that this course will help me gain more which shall be a guide and useful in my future pursuits.

As I was reflecting on what to write on this week’s journal I can across the video of Marcelito Pomoy on America’s Got Talent. I was expecting him that he will be able to get the Golden buzzer but Simon was telling him that it is too early. Comes Semifinal round, he sang Con Te Partirò. He was indeed very talented, and as always Simon’s comment is that he need to take a bigger risk because the surprise is now over. Simon’s constructive criticism will help Marcelito higher chance of winning the contest.

We were grouped in Dr. Malou’s group assignment on EDS 103. Most of my groupmates are from different group, we have different characters and most often than not we argue on some things but we were able to complete the given task one week prior submission. At the end of the task we are required to give a self and peer assessment. If my recollection is right, the criteria include: Concept, High Order Thinking, behavior, articulation and a brief justification of assessment.

The assessment for me has been very challenging because you have to weight things according to the set of criteria and not just how you feel.  The strategy of assessment is to assess the contribution on the given task of their group mates.  In self and peer assessment, this tool helps student learning process and develop their critical thinking and analysis, learning and lifelong skills. That timely feedback, identified weaknesses and strengths are acceptable for improvement. That why comprehension of assessment criteria is very important.

Resources

Assessment is always a big factor in the lives of many students. I believe assessment was created to measure what have we learned during the course. Meaning, all the basic knowledge particular on several activities, programs and projects, including quizzes, examinations that are being undertaken by the educational institution are carried out to ensure that the student’s learning process will continue to grow. I have come to realize that teaching and learning practices are essential to have an adequate assessment for improvement that is centered on to achieve its goal to lifelong learning. Therefore assessment is important to improve the level of knowledge and skills.

Upon learning this module, I can say that assessment’s purpose is to use it as a tool to strengthen the links between the students and the educators. I understand it much better how important it is as a practice and how it should be used to improve and prepare each and every one for the next level. Thus, I must adhere with the process of assessment which aims to achieve the objectives of the educators.

I completely agree that the process of assessment should improve the lives of the students. Maybe, if we think in that way, we clearly followed the principle of complete objectivity; that evidence should not be biased. But, being part of the student’s race as a whole.

It is in my responsibility as a student to discover new things that better the lives of others without of course decimating mine. And yes, we really went through the process and we are totally anxious most of the time. I remember I almost giving up and entertained negative thoughts even thinking of dropping if I cannot make it. However, it was the grace of God that all of us passed the previous courses.

My family and new found friends are my source of strength. We overcome challenges through the help of each other. I am glad that we have a chance to monitor our own progress and we continue to provide feedback. I must admit that the course was very challenging for me especially in the area of time management as I also struggle with personal and work concerns, However, despite the challenges, everyone finished the tasks, made last-minute posts, and wished everyone good luck in the days to come.  

Surely the tools and principles taught here will be useful in my present work and I hope that the friendship with the people I’ve met will go beyond this course.

The lesson in this course is a useful tool to attain the utmost accomplishment so to you my dear friends and classmates, “Do not Panic, We’ve got enough nerve!

Have I been doing it right?

For a student, assessment is a powerful tool to gauge the student based on what they learn. With our topic this week, this made me realized that what I’ve been doing from the past is not the proper way of assessing the learner’s.  I’ve been training people the traditional way, and at the end of the training a 30 items exams that they passed- and it should be perfect, else you will have to retake.

One of my Aha moments on this topic is,  I may have to align the learning intention so I may be able to engage the trainees and probably assess the questionnaire if I need to cut down and leave the essential ones. It also caught my attention that even I, should be assessed by the trainees so that I can effectively support and motivate them on their journey through learning.