Assessing and Evaluating Students’ Learning

How Do You Know What They Have Learned?

One of the more difficult tasks for an educator seems to be assessing and evaluating if a student actually knows what they have learned in class. This article speaks to the difficulty of that task, but also provides teachers with a tool set for how to effectively evaluate a students learning. The article takes a stance on avoiding “correct answer” tests and promotes the idea of a “knowing how” approach to learning literature instead of a “knowing that” approach. In other words, we want students to think freely and truly understand literature by formulating their own thoughts about it instead of just spitting out facts about what they read. The article gives several examples of how to approach assessments and evaluations in a way that breeds confidence in a student’s ability to think on their own and look deeper into a text to find meaning from it. Something that I have always been a fan of and is also stated in this article is journal entries and “exit memos.” This evaluation strategy allows a student to recall what they have learned and to collect their thoughts about the certain piece of literature that they are working with. It is a way to evaluate a students learning process by asking them to reflect on what they have learned. Instead of giving a student the option for right and wrong answers, like many standardized tests do, journal entries allow for their thoughts to be fully expanded on rather than condensing their thoughts into a small multiple choice question. The beauty of journal entries and exit memos is that they are versatile and you can use them in several different ways such as blog posts/responses as well as asking prompting questions to focus on a specific part of what a student is learning. This evaluation strategy is just one example from the article that shows how teachers can promote a “knowing how” learning strategy in their classrooms instead of a “knowing that” strategy.