What areas of growth are you experiencing in regards to assessment?  

    This week has really helped me understand the difference between reliability and validity, and also that both are necessary for an effective assessment. Any assessment can be either, but an effective one must be both. I liked the questions from Wiggins, "the quick and dirty 2 question test of validity" in the lecture, 

1. Could the students do a great job on the task, but not meet the goal of the assessment?

2. Could the students do a poor job on the task, but still prove lots of evidence that they can otherwise meet the goal of the assessment?

    These questions seem like a great way to check the validity of a test, if either is a yes, then it is probably not a valid assessment. 

    I also found it really helpful to learn about assessment bias, I had spent some time learning about bias in regards to culture, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity and other aspects of student life, but this was a new thought for me. I learned that this assessment bias can come in many forms, materials, activities, content, processes, and previous knowledge. 

How does your understanding of what you have learned impact your work as an educator?

    I have known that lesson planning is a process, and I assumed assessments were important, but I didn't realize that both of them had so many components. I felt intimidated while reading the book, and again while watching the lecture, however the zoom conference helped me put things in perspective. Both processes take effort and focus, but as we continue to learn and practice, I believe that it will just become a routine for us, the goal is to get it right from the start so that we always produce quality work. 

    As far as assessment bias goes, I am so grateful that these things are being taught to us, I think it is beyond important that we all learn to be self-reflective and aware, this week certainly highlighted that for me!