Lamplaimat Pattana School & โรงเรียนนอกกะลา จ.บุรัรัมย์

During a training session, I told many teachers to carry a halflitre bottle of water and asked them to tell me whether it was heavy.

The response was varied and these teachers gave different reasons to support their replies.

 That was when I told them the validity of an assessment depended on various factors and all of them could have errors.

 I would like to emphasise that teachers and educational institutes should pursue authentic assessments monitoring students' developments over time, not just at the time of taking tests.

 The authentic assessments can be made by observing students' participation in classroom and other activities, chatting with the students, checking their assignments, seeing how they have behaved in real life and examining their portfolios.

 In doing so, teachers will understand their students better and know more about their abilities.

 To children, the authentic assessments are, of course, better than conventional academic tests in the long run.

 These tests are clearly designed without taking the different aptitudes and abilities of individuals into account. Such differences, in fact, have complemented one another in the real world. If all people have the same abilities, many great things could have gone missing.

 At Lamplaimat Pattana School, there is no academic test because we have a policy to increase children's physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual quotients at the same time. The conventional tests could have distracted students and teachers' attention from this focus.

 In addition, we have decided to do without the academic tests because such evaluation tools more often than not encourage students to compete.

 At Lamplaimat Pattana School, we always think that children should learn to coexist mutually and cooperate. The competitive environment may adversely affect their growth.

 Today, it is widely known that Lamplaimat Pattana School's students are confident, friendly, helpful and happy about themselves.

 This explains why more than 20 schools have now followed the Lamplaimat Pattana model.

 In fact, the 1999 National Education Act calls for the authentic assessment. However, it has rarely been in place at educational institutes, given that the process of authentic assessment is a much more demanding job than scoring an answer sheet in conventional tests.

 However, given the huge benefits of the authentic assessments, relevant authorities have included the process in the new curriculum that will be applicable at all schools from this academic year onward.

 I hope recent efforts will be able to persuade all schools to adopt the authentic assessments. To get started, teachers must first identify learning objectives that are relevant to the curriculum and children's personal development. Then, the teachers can use Rubric to design assignments.

 Rubric is a scoring tool for subjective assessments. It is a set of criteria and standards linked to learning objectives that is used to assess a student's performance on papers, projects, essays and other assignments.

 Last but not least, teachers should create class activities that give their students not just academic knowledge but also stimulus for their personal growth.

 I expect to see all educational institutes, including universities, adjust their entrance exams in the same line.

 Without the change in their entrance exams, teachers and children will be reluctant to welcome the authentic assessment despite its huge benefits.

Wichian Chaiyabang

 Headmaster of Lamplaimat Pattana School

 www.lpmp.org

 http://lamplaimatpattanaschool.blogspot.com/

 [email protected]

 

ที่มา..

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/06/07/national/Monitor-students-development-regularly-not-just-at-30130995.html

 

ครูนอกกะลา

http://krunongkala.blogspot.com/