ASSESSMENTS IN A NEW LIGHT
Abstract
My second journal is based on the focused conversation for chapters 4 through 8 on the book Teaching Naked, How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning by Jose Antonio Bowen.
Keeping the focused conversation in mind I am to express my feelings and gut reactions on a topic, sentence or phrase that catches my attention as I read these chapters and put them into 4 categories. The line that I gravitated to was on page 95. “Assessments that promote learning combine low stakes- and high quality feedback.”
These are the parameters of what my journal will be written on.
1. Objective, something factual, what did I read, see or hear that caught my attention and write about it.
2. Reflective, what was my gut reaction to the piece I read
3. Interpretative, to reflect on my gut reaction, why did I have this gut reaction
4. Decisional, what will I do as a Teacher because of this reaction.
Objective
(Fact) Assessments that are done well need to motivate students, but motivation is complex, variable, situational and personal. Motivation varies with our interest but also with our expectations of success, effort, and intrinsic value of the task (Pintrich, 1988, 1989; Wolf, Smith, & Birnbaum, 1995). As a group , faculty are highly motivated by intrinsic value of a task (Froh, Menges, & Walker. 1993) and feelings of competency (Blackburn, Lawrence, Bieber, & Trautvetter, 1991) but it may also be useful to remind ourselves of the importance to our students of other types of motivation
Reflective
Our entire culinary arts program is based on many sets of assessments while attending the college program. For every student that makes it to the end of the course they will write a final exam to get their diploma that allows them to continue with their career path. They come back for their 2nd and 3rd year assessments, both times it requires the students to be in class for one month, learning what is being asked of them, how the assessment will be scored, how to do it properly through Chef demos and flash tests that are basically spur of the moment questions to keep the students on their collective toes. They end with a final cooking assessment at the end of the month that they are marked on. The Instructors address everything from how they are dressed, their setup, how they are performing throughout the assessment and then the final products are tasted by the |Instructor and the predetermined timing pieces that go along with that assessment are measured. When it's over, we talk to each student individually and ask them; how do you think you did?
This is not only a great ice breaker for the student and the Instructor, it invariably makes the student do a self assessment of their day. They are assessing themselves as they are working too, by checking the time frequently, looking at each others work to see where they are in their mis en place (having everything in it‘s place). You even see them standing in one place staring off into the far reaches of the galaxies wondering to themselves; have I forgotten something? How do I do this properly?
We are not allowed to give any assistance or guidance what so ever, so it makes it difficult for me as an Instructor to plainly see a mistake and not to be able to tell the student about it. We will give them timing countdowns so that they are aware of the exact time, but that is about all we can do, after all it’s their assessment. not mine.
After coming across this piece on page 94 of Teaching Naked by Antonio Bowen, it was apparent to me that I was going to write about assessments as my entry for my 2nd journal. I have been through several tough assessments in my career. I know how this feels! I know how it is supposed to work! I know what the benefits of being assessed are! But the question is, do I really know all this stuff? I have never had a terrible life shattering bad assessment. How less motivating is a bad assessment? Why do we even need to be assessed? Will this assessment even help me as I go through my career? Am I going to quit because of a bad assessment? These are a few of the thoughts that ran through my brain as I came across Assessments.
Interpretive
My feelings towards this topic are strong. Of course we need to be assessed. How are the students or anyone for that matter ever going to know how they are really doing if they are never assessed? Are they following the set schedule? Are they meeting the parameters that were set for them by the Instructor? Do they have the passion to see it through? How will they work through their problems?
These are good questions to be asked. In the big picture there are certain questions that will be asked upon the success or failure of each of these students from their assessments. In fact if there is an overwhelming failure or success rate, then the questions begin about the quality of the program and the assessors or the content of the assessment itself, the validity of the assessment is also questioned. How often are these assessments updated? Whom is responsible for these updates? The Industry Training Alliance makes sure that these are kept updated as each of the students assessments are forwarded to the I.T.A. along with the Instructors names and their signatures.
All of the Instructors take these assessments very seriously. In fact the Province of B.C. and the Faculty at V.C.C. takes these seriously. We hold the students future in our hands based on one month of practice and one final cooking lab performed by each student. When I sit down with each student I have so say it is a bit nerve racking for me as well, especially if I am about to fail a student based on a poor performance. It’s much easier if I am passing a student, even though we might put them through the mill about their day. Where they can improve and how to improve. Using different and more useful methods to attain the preset out come. In the long run, telling a student that they have passed and they will receive their Red Seal is a wonderful feeling for the student and for the Instructor as well.
To tell a student they have failed and need to redo the program can be a traumatic experience for them. How I handle this part is a practice in sensitivity training. We don’t want to completely blow the student away with negative verbage. Instead we revert back to the self assessment they talked to us about in the beginning. We will go through many parts of the day and query them as to what they were doing. An example would be as I was watching them put a consommé together and the consommé started to boil like mad and it inevitably split open and the consommé was a failure, I would ask them about the tasks they were performing at that moment. How did they let the consommé get away on them? Did they practice making this recipe. They would all come back with, yes Chef I know I messed it up, I didn’t practice making in a while, but I put it up for assessment any way; it is better than nothing they would say. These types of students get it! They know they didn’t do very well and have accepted their fate. The tough one can be the ones who think they did really well. These students are the ones that are tougher to evaluate. There is always an air of I deserve it. By the end of the interview they understand what has transpired and either reapply to do it again or they don’t. We can only grade each plate as it’s presented to us. Simple.
Decisional
Moving forward with this new knowledge of assessment I am asking myself, in what ways can I make this assessment or any assessment the best overall experience for the students? When I say the ‘best’ I mean how will the students benefit from being assessed by me?
Assessment should be viewed as a tool to measure the effectiveness of teaching and learning processes and should not be interpreted as the objective of a students learning experience. (Yong and Lim, 2008). Wise words that apply to the majority of my assessments. It isn't the end of anything but a beginning to a new and more enlightened learning experience. That's life! Looking back at the students that have had to come back to be re-assessed is an area that concerns me. Some of the responses to questions I have posed to them during the feedback portion of their final cooking assessment are easily fixed. It's usually timing issues or they don't know the equipment that well or they forgot to turn the oven on. These are all excuses for the non prepared. Sometimes their cooking just isn't very good. When a student comes in prepared and listens well to all directions, understands the theoretical and the practical part of their assessment and has a very good grasp of their timing, as all dishes are time based and have to be presented in there best form at a predetermined time that is shared with the students.
A majority of the students that have struggled, all say similar things, that they lacked the time to study, are too busy with work or they have external issues that has hindered their thought process. When the assessments for the students that performed poorly come to an end. I will go over some pertinent points, with a caring attitude and a bit of humour. The influx of something humours or maybe a real life situation that I was involved with that didn't turn out so well could help them feel a bit better. An obvious training point for me that I will use from now on is that all the students get the same amount of time to prep for the assessment. Also the Chefs put a lot of energy into making these assessment go as well as they can. Perhaps connecting through email or twitter for help might be an avenue worth looking at. Does it look good on the Instructors when they have an entire class that performs well and passes their assessments, maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. I will try my best to teach the way I was taught, instil in them the profound career path they have chosen is full of adventure and promise as long as they are willing to be taught and learn, and have a better understanding of what the critical factors of passing a Red Seal Culinary Assessment done by Chef Paul really is.
References
Sharan B. Merriam Ralph G Brockett 1997, 2007 The Profession and Practice of Adult Education An Introduction
Yong and Lim, 2008)
http://www.academia.edu/3706290/The_Benefits_of_School_Based_Assessment
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