My take on: "Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning" by Richard Beach et al.

Hello Readers.

One of my greatest fears starting in the teaching profession is if I'm able to assess if students are learning what I'm teaching them. It's one thing to stand-up in front of a classroom and present a topic for your class in order to get a college credit, but how difficult is it to teach a topic for students to better themselves? This idea freaks me out! Richard Beach and other esteemed colleagues devised this chapter to help teachers assess and evaluate if what they are doing is helping the students and what they can do to fix issues that arise in the classroom. The opening example of the student teacher having different approaches to the mentor teacher is applicable throughout the teaching field. Multiple personalities means multiple perspectives at approaching a novel or topic of English. Beach is showing how different styles can have different approaches and Beach gives examples to help a range of teaching styles. My favorite example that was presented in this chapter was that of the portfolio exercise to not only show improvement from day one to the end of the term. This idea branches out to all different types of skills and abilities that arise in the classroom. What Beach points out is if the teacher is upfront and honest with his/her students, then the ability to lower anxiety when it comes to assessing them decreases. Who would have thought? To be honest with someone would increase their chance of trusting you/building a personal relationship with you, which in turn would help them feel more comfortable and allow learning to take full flight. If you cannot sense my sarcasm here, it's there! It's not that I think I know it all--believe me I don't--it just seems like a logical thing that teachers should have in the back of the minds. To have everything organized and layer out on the table so students know expectations and there isn't room for error, it seems like the teaching environment I see for my future and Beach has given me more tools to better assess and evaluate my future students. This chapter will be something I hold on to as a reference for different strategies for different classrooms I teach in the future! 

Cheers.

Ryan