Chapter
Eight titled, “Assessment in the Partnership Pedagogy,” examined six areas of assessments,
they are: 1. student, 2. teacher, 3. administrator, 4. parent, 5. school, 6. world.
The student assessment included,
ipsative – beating your personal best.
Peer assessment – student’s work is assessed by their peers. Real world
assessment – feedback is giving from other schools, cities, and countries. Self-assessment – the student assesses his or
her own work. Also, the chapter
mentioned assessing students with their own tools, such as, smart phones,
tablets, and computers. This is
interesting because students and teachers will have to set new rules on what
the norms or “rules” for using technology will be for assessments.
Teachers should self-assess annually
and the results should be known to students and administrators for continuity.
Hopefully, this will motivate teachers to get better and better. Should this
teacher self-assessment be included on a teacher’s formal evaluation? And should it tie in with promotions and
raises? These are questions to ponder
for teacher self-assessment.
The chapter outlined administrator
assessments posed as seven questions. The questions are assessing questions
dealing with the administrators’ knowledge of partnering and in what ways the
administrator gives his or her support to students, teachers and parents.
The parents’ assessment included a
checklist self-assessment where they assessed themselves by how well they:
listened, helped, encouraged, participated, and shared in the partnering
process. There was also a part for the
student to chime in on what they wished to get more or less from his or her
partnering parents.
Assessing the schools progress, the
chapter acknowledges that the standardized practices will continue to be the
norm. But as schools move towards a
partnering pedagogy, they will see a rise in test scores, quality student work,
teacher collaboration, and better student-teacher relations.
World assessment continues to draw criticism
and praise among school leaders and politicians. Are we “falling behind” as a
nation? There seems to be some
debate. The author of this chapter
seemed to think that the whole story of the United States being behind in the
world of education should not be measured by just our nation, rather focus on
raising the education bar for the whole world.
Reflecting on this chapter, I liked
the student, teacher, and parent’s assessments, but I wasn’t sure about the
school leaders’ assessment. I have many
friends who are teachers complain about how school leaders are so political to
the point where they feel school leaders are working for state leaders instead
of students, teachers and the community.
Am I saying all school leaders fall in this category? No, I’m not,
because personally, I know many school leaders who want the best for their
students, teachers and the community. I hear
them complain also. They get caught in the middle between politics and the best
interest of their school. What do you
think? Please share your feelings with me.
I agree, administrators really do want the best for their faculty and students. However, they must also comply with state mandated and accreditation from a number of organizations, OK Promise, ACT, AP, North Central (old and new), just to name a few. Recently in our PLC department meetings we talked about changing the names of a few of our electives to make them more interesting for the students. Although our principal loved the ideas he said we are limited to the electives the state department and OK Promise (a scholarship program for lower income families). So necessarily all administrators do go into any new idea with a level of caution to make sure all their based are covered. This may have something to do with many admins reaction to new educational ideas like partnering.
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