Evaluating Students

Below is a list of sample questions and responses on which one may reflect to create an evaluation form.

What are my current perceptions of evaluating students?

• By using evaluation for the purpose of confirming knowledge acquisition while students are in the course.
• By using evaluation to inform the design of a new course and to make changes according to this evaluation
• By using evaluation as a tool for affirming student progress

How do I do evaluating in my own work?

• Depending on the course, using standardized tests that produce quantifiable results, which students can then use to compare their work
• Assigning homework that will later be submitted and assessed; this assessment is subjective because there is no standard criteria used to evaluate this work

How does your planning relate to the evaluation process?

• Depending on the course, some plans teach directly to the test
• In a more general ESL course, there isn’t an evaluation process because of students’ perceptions and fears of what this entails; the focus of then becomes the course’s contents and results in a less formal, less structured course

How do you discover learning needs?

• Depending on the course, by conducting a needs assessment survey at the beginning of a course, which is supplemented with on-going dialogue with students as the course proceeds.
• Dialogue with students can help inform teaching practice
• Observing students’ response to questions posed in class can reveal such things as whether students fully comprehend the questions or their implications
• Observing students’ in-class conduct, behaviour, and rate of attendance also provides insights to their potential needs

What have you learned about yourself as an educator?

• That my focus tends to be on the in-class interactions between me and students but not on assessing the quality of that relationship
• That I need a more structured, quantitative, and accountable way to evaluate students that focuses on their individual needs, not on their needs as a group
• That the needs assessments surveys I’d created in the past are too general and don’t really relate to the course objectives with their purported outcomes, or if they do, there isn’t a cogent way of ascertaining these

What do you hope to learn as you examine the accountability process and apply it to your teaching situation?

• To become more accountable to and prescriptive for my students as individuals
• To ascertain for myself that students are making progress and are learning
• That students are able to fully apply what they are learning in the courses I teach them
• To learn how to design effective evaluation surveys

If you currently view evaluation as an important part of each program for which you are responsible, how does that show in the process as you evaluate?

• Through eliciting verbal feedback from students as the course progresses, which is then used to adjust or inform the course and resource materials
• Through engaging in discussions with other colleagues about their classroom experiences and how these affect my attitudes towards how my students are learning

What key elements of a philosophy of evaluation that guide your efforts can you articulate?

• That evaluation should be used to ensure that students are learning what was intended for them to learn as outlined in the course curriculum
• That evaluation can be used to ensure that what is being learned is applicable and not just exist in the realm of theory
• That evaluation can be used as a tool of affirmation for both instructors and students, which can then be used to propel them forward beyond current and self-imposed boundaries of learning

As a practicing adult educator, when do you feel that you have the autonomy to design evaluation in such a way that it helps you improve the education process as well as the results of the program?

• When colleagues and administrators of educational programs I work in sanction such an effort
• When I work independent of such programs, for instance, when I tutor individual students
• When a course I teach is less ‘high stakes’, less structured, and so is weighted less in percentage (of overall marks) than another in the same program

Make a list of the strongly-held beliefs that currently guide your approach to evaluation:

• Evaluations must be carefully and purposefully created to reflect the goals and objectives of a program
• Evaluation tools should reflect an evaluation philosophy, a program design, the time and resources of an organization, and the skills/interests of the educators and learners
• Evaluations shouldn’t limit or interfere with a program

Adapted from: Vella, J., Berardinelli, P. & Burrow, J. (1998). How do they know they know? Evaluating adult learning. San Francisco : Jossey-Bass Inc.