E-Portfolio

Week 1

Re: Your feedback on Anderson's article

by BT10110168 OYAME AH HONG - Friday, 21 December 2012, 03:06 AM

The first thing that I like about the article is the issue of shifting from traditional assessment to alternative assessment. Before this, I never thought about traditional assessment, because what I had learned so far from every course, mainly about teaching theories. Thus, Anderson’s article somehow opens up my eyes about how far our Malaysia education system from an alternative assessment but with PBS, the gap are closing now, hopefully, soon, we could fully utilize PBS in school including primary students.

Secondly, I liked the way she tries to justify her stand regarding traditional and alternative assessment. But I would say that, I’m more interested with how alternative would help students to learn based on alternative assessment that favor contructivism theory as oppose to traditional assessment. Constructivism is more towards cooperative learning approach, where, students work together to help each other in their learning.

          Lastly, alternative assessment allow teacher to assess students creatively and not just based on exam paper only. Thus, assessment would be in term of project, product and etc where, students apply what they had learned in class. Hence, each student could see their strengths and weaknesses as an individual.

 

Week 1

Re: Thoughts on Youtube video watched

by BT10110168 OYAME AH HONG - Thursday, 13 September 2012, 07:52 AM

Basically after watched the video I realize that how students during my time and even before us suffer in answering endless of examination questions since primary school and yet those examinations does not provide us with a good preparation to face the real world. Thus school assessment should help to prepare students to be a competitive individual who know how to do the job and not only good in answering examination questions.

          On top of that, it is important to explore different kind comprehensive assessments which are used in the video that required students to apply what they learn and along the way they will develop multiple skills such as leadership skill, work as a team, problem solving and so on. We as a human has different traits and talents and exam-oriented based assessment only favor those who are good in pen or pencil. So, in order to maximize students’ full potential in learning, comprehensive assessments are necessary.

       Lastly, I sensed that with the new educational system, we are moving from a traditional to a more comprehensive assessment or from a product-oriented system to a more process -oriented type of system. Hopefully, students with different intelligences will be able to benefit from the new system since it is no longer a competition kind of environment but instead the students will work together to improved each other results.

Week 2

Only The Theories of Learning Develop?

by BT10110168 OYAME AH HONG - Saturday, 03 November 2012, 10:47 AM

Anderson’s argument on the theory of contructivism attracted my attention because I never thought that when there are so many learning theories pointed out by researchers and yet we are still using traditional assessment practices. Thus, we can say that the developments of assessment practices are too far behind from the development of learning theories.Therefore, I agree with the idea to move from traditional assessment to alternative assessment practices because it will promote both active learning and assessment especially in high education.

          Furthermore, I would like to see the changes that the alternative assessment will do to our new generations if we were to implement it in Malaysia, because during my time, teachers are not dictator but students’ feedback on assessments are not that welcome. Thus, alternative assessments will allow democracy kind of environment in the class that will help to produce active learners or self-regulated learners because they get to choose on why, what and how they should learn. On top of that, with the shifting, students who are good in other aspects and not only in rote memorizing should be able to maximize their full potential in learning because alternative assessment will assess students in many aspects such as proficiency, creativity and so on. Alternative assessment also favours both the process and product but on the other hand traditional assessment practices only focusing on the product which in other words does not prepare students with the real world situations.

          In a nutshell, with alternative assessments teacher will be more like an artist because it will be a tool that allow teacher to explore their creativity when assessing students. On the other hand, students will be able to develop valuable personal skills such as team work, leadership, decision-making, problem solving and so on.

Week 11

Re: Which do you prefer - Holistic or Analytic marking?

by BT10110168 OYAME AH HONG - Friday, 21 December 2012, 02:27 AM

Personally, as a trainee teacher I prefer analytic rather than holistic marking. Holistic requires experiences before a teacher could utilize the best out of holistic approach. Apart from that, holistic would always suits in term practicality (time) because it is easy and fast. However, both holistic and analytic marking has their own strength and weaknesses, like for instance, holistic good in term of practicality but maybe not that good in other factors such as reliability as oppose to analytic marking which very specific but require time.

Thus, in order get the best of both holistic and analytic marking. Teacher could combine both holistic and analytic marking into one, but I don’t really know how actually the two marking approach could work together, unless what we mean here by combining them are to use them separately according to the situations. Last but not least, for placement test, analytic should be a better marking approach than holistic, other than that, holistic could always help in and out based on the situation encounter by a teacher.

Week 13

Re: Course Evaluation and Feedback

by BT10110168 OYAME AH HONG - Friday, 21 December 2012, 02:10 AM

   
1. Your overall reflection of the course TE30503. What are the three things you liked about the course and the three things that you felt could be better improved.

Personally, three things that I liked about the course are first the involvement of two lecturers for both assessment and lecture. Both lecturers, Dr. Lee and Miss Yoon have their own teaching techniques or ways to convey their teaching through different medium such as blog, smart UMS and etc which make the course more interesting. Apart from that, both lecturers shared their different experiences during the struggle to become a capable lecturer that I see today and I truly value what they shared during lectures.

Secondly, I learned so much about assessment, especially about PBS, traditional assessment, alternative assessment, validity, reliability and more. Before this, I always thought assessing students only involved basic preparation of rubrics and this course totally changed my views towards assessment. Hence, back to PBS, although Ministry of Education have not come out with strong a concept and ways to implement PBS, but still, it’s a good movement from traditional assessment to alternative assessment which would help every students and not only those who good in memorization.

Third, I liked the last assignment in which every groups given chance to develop their own test, rubrics, theoretical framework of their test, administration and so on. Basically, the last assignment helped us to apply what we have learned during lectures and the fact that there are no boundaries or limit provided by lecturers allow us to extend our creativity into a new level in designing our own test.

On the other hand, I don’t really have much to say about what to improve for the course but I would like to suggest journals like how our assessment method affects students’ learning strategies to give learners like us a wider view of how assessment work in and out when it’s implemented in education system. Hence, before this I never realize that, our education system actually favor more those who good at memorization (produce passive learner) and not a critical thinker (produce active learner). Thus, in order to pass Malaysia‘s education system, you just have to swallow everything up and you will be one of the top students in the class.

2.Learning of the Course content /Learning outcomes.

Whereby, as I mentioned before, I liked the course content or the learning outcome because it opened up my mind about what is assessment all about. Furthermore, apart from learning the basic concept of assessment, we also introduced to different method of assessment which is traditional and alternative assessment. Hence, now I have some ideas on how and when to use either global or analytic assessment during my teaching in the future because both global and analytic can actually work together or separated as one depend on the situations.

Moreover, I learned so much about different issues or aspects that involved during the process of preparing a test which I always thought easy. Reading materials in this course somehow attracted me to read more about assessments, for instance, how does assessment method affects students’ learning style or learning strategies.

3.The learning tools and learning environment provided.

I do not have any problem regarding the learning tools or learning environment provided by both lecturers in this course. In fact, I liked the part that we have to create our own blog and learned about blog’s gadgets, interactive learning tools and etc from Miss Yoon. Moreover, I always like Dr. Lee’s learning environment, in which we are given different range of learning environment and not only based on face-to-face interaction. Face-to-face meeting is too typical and traditional approach and on the other hand blended learning environment somehow help to provide varieties to class’s interaction.

4.Working individually/collaboratively in doing tasks, assignments and assessments.

I do not have problem to work with my group members and in fact I learned so much from them every semester. Furthermore, most of the tasks given in the course are group based task and it helps us to develop ourselves as a person and a future teacher that not only good at working by our own but at the same time as a team too. Although there is no individual assignment apart from the E-portfolio, but I think for this semester, I would rather to have more groups’ assignment rather than individual.

5.The “rules of engagement (requirements)” of the course.

The rules of engagement somehow help us to push ourselves to keep an eye on what happened in the smart UMS especially for the course, if not, I do not think that anyone would bother to check in and answer all questions pointed out by lecturer. On top of that, I’m very into humanism approach in teaching, so, I’m always grateful to be given chance in giving feedback on what I had learned in the course. Feedback session help to develop learners’ thinking skills and along the way, teacher could get some information on what to improve in the future.

6. Anything which you would like to add concerning the two courses which could enhance your knowledge, skills, and attitudes as a teacher.

I would say, more feedback sessions from both lecturers especially regarding our assignments. Apart from that, I don’t think that 14 weeks are enough for us to learn everything about assessment and issues related to it. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Dr.Lee and Miss Yoon. Thank You for all your hard work.