WHEN SHOULD A WRITTEN QUIZ BE GIVEN AND WHY?
There are times that when I sit down to observe a class (usually on informal visits), the students have nothing to do but answer a quiz. What is the nature of this quiz? Is this summative or formative?
It should always be that after a lesson the teacher has to evaluate whether the learning objectives were met. The teacher has to assess all three objectives-cognitive, affective and psychomotor. This evaluation must have been formative for its main objective is to determine whether learning took place. Unfortunately, only the cognitive aspect is evaluated!
So how do we consider a thirty-item test which is given neither as a periodic or quarterly exam? Can this be formative too? Mostly teachers give long exams which correspond to topics taken in one unit. Is this summative in nature? Let us remember, however, that before such a test the students have already been evaluated after every daily lesson; although, the latter is obviously formative, isn't it that a unit exam (in the guise of being summative), redundant in nature to a periodic exam or quarterly exam.
I was just wondering because quizzes are really supposed to be formative in nature and never summative. I always find it a waste of time giving long exams as summative evaluation because a periodic or quarterly exam does the same-quantify learning. Teachers may instead opt for an authentic task to evaluate learning rather than give a long quiz that is clearly to the teacher summative in nature and thus, a repition of the periodic or quarter exam.
Worst, if the long exam is just to feign lack of willingness to prepare one good lesson!
There are times that when I sit down to observe a class (usually on informal visits), the students have nothing to do but answer a quiz. What is the nature of this quiz? Is this summative or formative?
It should always be that after a lesson the teacher has to evaluate whether the learning objectives were met. The teacher has to assess all three objectives-cognitive, affective and psychomotor. This evaluation must have been formative for its main objective is to determine whether learning took place. Unfortunately, only the cognitive aspect is evaluated!
So how do we consider a thirty-item test which is given neither as a periodic or quarterly exam? Can this be formative too? Mostly teachers give long exams which correspond to topics taken in one unit. Is this summative in nature? Let us remember, however, that before such a test the students have already been evaluated after every daily lesson; although, the latter is obviously formative, isn't it that a unit exam (in the guise of being summative), redundant in nature to a periodic exam or quarterly exam.
I was just wondering because quizzes are really supposed to be formative in nature and never summative. I always find it a waste of time giving long exams as summative evaluation because a periodic or quarterly exam does the same-quantify learning. Teachers may instead opt for an authentic task to evaluate learning rather than give a long quiz that is clearly to the teacher summative in nature and thus, a repition of the periodic or quarter exam.
Worst, if the long exam is just to feign lack of willingness to prepare one good lesson!
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