Assessments: Enhancing Learning, Understanding, and Grades - Essay Sample

Introduction

Assessments are key aspects of education as they are considered to be ways in which educators measure the knowledge gained by the students. Students, educators, and parents have different perspectives about assessments. Therefore, assessments are not just ways to provide grades to the students; they are also to enhance the effective acquisition of skills and concepts (Lund & Kirk, 2019). To students and educators, assessments boost the learning process as they enhance understanding, and makes teaching effective. My academic growth, experience, and perspective about assessments have evolved. The paper intends to discuss my experiences with assessments from the perspective of a student, educator, and parents responding to how it felt before, during and after the assessment, and how the results were used.

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Experience With Assessments as a Student

As a student, I had a narrow view about assessments as I considered them to be stressful before, during and after taking them, when waiting for the results. I was anxious and worried every time my educators notified us that we had assessments. I was not sure about what my educators would say to my parents if I failed any of the assessments. Therefore, I thought of it as a method that educators used to measure the grades. Besides, before and during assessments, I thought that they were ways that educators used to measure if the students had fully acquired the topics taught in class. After the assessment, I had a different perspective because I thought of it as a tool that tested our understanding as students. It enables one to have a reflection of what topic needs more concentration than others. After every assessment, I used the results to identify the learning gaps that needed more attention. It helps in forming strategies on how to improve my grades and understanding. Besides, results helped me to recognize which disciplines I had more knowledge at and the ones that I was weak at that needed more time to learn.

Experience With Assessments as an Educator

As an educator, I thought of assessments as practices to boost students learning and make teaching more effective. Assessments are stressful to the educator before, during and after they are accomplished because they are a tool test how effective the educators are carrying out their duties. Despite that, assessments were to ensure that educators improve the teaching strategies (Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia et al., 2020). Therefore, my experience with assessment results as an educator helped in gathering data to identify the strength and weaknesses of my students, establish how to involve parents in the children's learning and modify the teaching process. Through the use of the results, as an educator, I identified the students' learning requirements and formulated ways of addressing them. Despite the positive experience with assessments, there were times when I was worried that assessing the students was a way of determining whether I was working enough as an educator. I thought that if the students failed their assessment, it was a failure to my practice.

Experience With Assessments as a Parent

As a parent, assessments were way to test whether my children were working hard enough and if the educators were doing their duties well. I was worried at times especially when I show my children stressed when trying to get ready for the assessment, but then I was happy to see that they were making some effort. Besides, assessment ensured that I interacted with my children on the matters of academics especially when they consulted about some topics which I had wide knowledge on. After the assessments and my children's results were ready, I was excited and ready to know how I can help as a parent to boost the effort of the educator and my children.

Assessments are helpful to the students, educators, and parents. All of them may be stressed before, during and after the assessments, but the results help them identify the part that needs to be addressed. Students get to adjust their learning approaches, educators boost their teaching strategies and parents establish the role that they can play. The paper has discussed my experiences with assessments from the perspective of a student, educator, and parents responding to how it felt before, during and after the assessments, and how the results were used.

References

Lund, J. L., & Kirk, M. F. (2019). Performance-based assessment for middle and high school physical education. Human Kinetics Publishers. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=7amPDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=education+assessment&ots=CwB_g8eiQV&sig=oLardfc9zvoK0UdCMfLCcoxwtEw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=education%20assessment&f=false

Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Pant, H. A., Toepper, M., & Lautenbach, C. (2020). Modeling and measuring competencies in higher education. In Student Learning in German Higher Education (pp. 1-6). Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-27886-1_1