The Looming Presence of Assessments

I remember test taking as always being part of school.  By the time I got to high school one would think I would have mastered taking tests (which I still have not).  Then during my undergraduate work I was exposed to different kinds of tests and assessments, which showed me that I am just not as strong in multiple choice or true/false tests as I am with tests that require reasoning and give me a chance to argue my claims.  Having decided to enter the field of education I have seen that standardized testing in schools has become even critically tied to a student's performance than when I was in school.  Obviously there does need to be some kind of assessment, but is constant testing (and the same kinds of tests at that) really the best way to evaluate performance, knowledge, or ability?

Just as I have my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to different forms of tests, I believe all students have a testing niche in which they are most successful.  I completely agree with Dr. Caitlin Dooley who stated that a single test cannot tell the whole story and that we need to have different genres of assessments (2010).  Tests should not be a measure of how gifted a student is at taking tests, but at assessing what they have learned and where improvements can be made.  Assessments should be a means of helping teachers figure out how to be more effective in the classroom.

According to Johnson and Keier, authors of Catching Readers Before They Fall, other forms of assessment include informal conferences with our students, taking notes on students's performances throughout the day, or a more formal assessment like a running record or benchmark tests (2010).  We as teachers are in the classroom to teach our students.  What better way to assess how we as teachers are performing and how our students are doing than by watching them and taking note of their learning processes?