Field Experience: Assessment Observation/Report

As part of the training program at George Mason University, the TEA student-teachers

have been performing some observation and teaching practice at different public

schools in the state of Virginia. In my case, I can refer to Holmes Middle School, which

is the school I have been attending, and in more detail, to the ESOL class, levels 1 and

2.

What I have noticed is that the classes I have observed are very dynamic and there is a

structure in the process of each period. Students always perform certain procedures in

the same order, which might sound boring but is actually very helpful for them to keep

their minds organized and to know what to expect. Besides, the order of the activities is

the same, but the activities themselves vary; for example, the second activity for each

class is what they call “sound and spelling”, but every day there’s a different activity to

complete so they practice a particular phonics or spelling content.

Regarding the assessment practice in the classrooms observed, I can say that my

mentor teacher practices a daily assessment at the end of her class, as part of what I

understand is an authentic assessment in terms of the teacher observations, not only

because she keeps track of her students’ progress but also because by doing this, she

helps them understand their own progressi. Besides, she helps students organize their

work and keep track of their learning process by the use of a portfolio, which she checks

herself every once in a while. In this case, the students’ portfolio really is “a purposeful

collection of student work that is intended to show progress over time”, it includes the

students’ work “purposefully and systematically […] to reflect learning with regard to

instructional objectives”ii On the other hand, this is an excellent tool as an alternative to

traditional assessment at the school level and it helps with the students who need to

fulfill empirical evidence regarding their learning process, in case they need to transfer,

and it can provide follow-on teachers with concrete evidence of what they have

accomplishediii, which is the case of a couple of twins who were transferred to another

school.

Besides that, I have observed that she aims her assessment practices to meet certain

performance standards, which she keeps in mind every lesson she presents and what I

think is very useful is that she lets her students know those standards, perhaps not in a

way that is difficult for them to understand, but with simple words. The only difference I

find regarding this observation and my own practice in my school, is that in Holmes M.

School content standards are based or stated in terms of content rather than

performance, which is the contrary in my school. The point here is that it has called my

attention, because according to J. Michael O’Malley and Lorraine Valdez Pierce in their

book “Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners, Practical Approaches for

teachers”, a content standard declares knowledge and procedural knowledge specific to

a content, while a performance standard is more specific in terms of activities on which

the content and procedural knowledge can be demonstrated iv, but even when it is not

stated in the objectives presented to the students, as I explained before, they know

exactly what they are doing, what they are learning, and they understand the why the

performance of all the activities lead them to reach the goal stated at the beginning of

the class.

Apart from that, I had the chance to observe another class; it was regular seventh grade

and they had a reading comprehension that day. I was glad to see that the assessment

was similar to the ones we practice in my school, because it included a vocabulary

section and the words were not evaluated only by their definitions, but also used in

context, and the reading comprehension included questions that related the book to the

i J. Michael O’Malley/Lorraine Valdez Pierce. Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners, Practical Approaches for teachers. Pg. 14

ii J. Michael O’Malley/Lorraine Valdez Pierce. Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners, Practical Approaches for teachers. Pg. 14

iii J. Michael O’Malley/Lorraine Valdez Pierce. Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners, Practical Approaches for teachers. Pgs. 37-38

iv J. Michael O’Malley/Lorraine Valdez Pierce. Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners, Practical Approaches for teachers. Pg. 26

students’ experience. At the end, they exchanged their papers for peer correction, which

is something we often do too, and I think the good thing about this practice is that

students can provide each other with feedback.v

Finally, I would like to add that I observe a dictation practice by my mentor teacher and

she had her students self-assess, which takes off the pressure of getting a good grade

form students; this among with other practices I observed and commented earlier, I

think, helps both teachers and students become aware of students’ attitudes, strengths,

and weaknesses, as J. Michael O’Malley and Lorraine Valdez Pierce mentionvi, to

promote a positive change, which is at the end, the purpose of assessment.

v J. Michael O’Malley/Lorraine Valdez Pierce. Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners, Practical Approaches for teachers. Pg. 102

vi J. Michael O’Malley/Lorraine Valdez Pierce. Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners, Practical Approaches for teachers. Pg. 100