Connect clear targets to assessment. Unit 2B

Connect clear target to assessment quality. UNIT 2.B

In the present task, we should relate our own experience with 3 ways in which clear targets are a necessary precursor to assessment quality. 

Teachers should avoid that their students feel lost. A useful way of solving this problem is to have clear targets. I have thought 3 ways in which clear targets influence the assessment.

*Having a chart with the targets that students should achieve is a really useful way of motivating students. In this way, they don´t forget the targets that they have to achieve and they work to be successful in them. In addition, they get the sense of why each activity that the teacher proposes is carried out. It is because they know that the activies that they perform have a concrete target. 

I can add a personal experience about it. I developed my teaching practices in a "Sek" school. I could see that a chart with the targets was situated in a special place in all the classrooms. I could see that students knew why they were developing each activity, they were motivated and also they had so clear what they had to know to get a high grade. So, in my opinion, the presence of targets close to the students have a successful result.

*Negociating the targets with our students. Students are part of the teaching- learning process, so they should participate taking decissions. Teachers should ask suggestions to their students. Frecuently, teachers change their teaching plans because of the differences between students, but why not to ask our students about the targets that they are able to achieve? Students know their own strengths and weakness, so they can give the teacher the necessary clues to develop clear targets.

I learnt about "negotiating the targets" in the "methodology" subject and I have put it into practice with my students. It has been so successful because thay have felt as an important part of the process and they have gotten a clear understanding of the targets. Also, negotiate the targets give our students the reference to get the goals, getting an assessment of quality.

*Do not follow books. Normally, teachers are centred in finish books which include multitude of activities. However, most of the time, children don´t know why they are doing that. In my opinion, books are a resource which avoid that students have clear targets, having, at the same time, a bad effect in the assessment.

I have had the opportunity of preparing my own material without the necessity of following any book. I prepared each task according to clear targets which I explained to my students. So they understond what they had to achieve. 

However, following or not books is not only a decision of the teacher, the school and also parents have a strong importance in this decisions in some schools. So, most of the time, I have not the opportunity of developing this way of working.