Assessment Strategies Paper

Assessment Strategies
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Assessment Strategies
Assessment entails anything that a tutor does to collate information for making decisions with regard to the learners’ learning the tutor’s teaching. The main purpose of assessment is to collate data or information. In essence, assessment lets the teacher and the students know about the depth as well as quality of learning that is occurring (Brown, Bull & Pendlebury, 2013). In this paper, various assessment methods used for the identified kind of course with the diverse students are compared and contrasted, and the method that is most effective in responding to the situation basing upon the analysis is identified. The alternative assessments that can be used to evaluate student learning are also described. Furthermore, this paper describes how students would be evaluated basing upon a number of criteria including on an individual level, in health care, in a group activity, in a distance learning environment, and in a classroom setting. Lastly, this paper describes how the selected method of learning assessment addresses the different styles of learning, special populations, and use of higher order thinking skills for the different kinds of students noted.
Assessment methods for the diverse student populations
Assessment is a broad term which includes a variety of ways for collating, analyzing and interpreting data. The main assessment methods include teacher-made assessments, commercially-prepared assessments and standardized tests. Others include formative and summative assessments, portfolios, performance assessments, and socio-cultural assessments.
Standardized tests: these are tests, either criterion-referenced or norm-referenced, which are administered, scored and interpreted in a standard fashion (Guba & Lincoln, 2010). Norm-referenced implies that the performance of learners on a given test could be compared to the performance of other similar learners who have done similar test – the norm group. It is notable that the information which is obtained from this sort of test is meant to assist both parents and educators in knowing how their learners are performing compared to other similar learners (Brown, Bull & Pendlebury, 2013). Conversely, criterion-referenced tests look at the performance of a student relative to mastery of particular specified content. On these kinds of tests, a decision is made regarding what really comprises or represents proficiency, or sufficient learning of the content. If a learner scores above or at the passing score, then it is presumed that this learner is proficient or competent in knowledge of the specific content. Large-scale standardized assessments are usually based upon the traditional psychometrics, be they criterion-referenced or norm-referenced (Brown, Bull & Pendlebury, 2013).
Commercially prepared assessments: a lot of the supplemental materials and textbooks that educators utilize for instruction in their classrooms are commercially prepared and include assessments. Brookhart (2010) reported that these assessments might be utilized in several different ways, including screening, monitoring progress, diagnosing learning problems, and assessing lear...