In tackling an answer in the exam to a question about monitoring student achievement, firstly you would consider the various methods of assessment as outlined in the intelligence document. Additionally, the relative merits of norm-referencing and criteria-referencing would need to be considered.
These methods of assessment centre on academic achievement, which is a bit short- sighted. You will learn from my motivation document that motivation is an important pre-requisite for academic achievement. My document on humanism will give you one of the major approaches to motivation. The cognitive approach would consider the processing efficiency of sub-components of higher-order cognitive functions, such as reading and comprehension. This approach would agree that a high pass grade in many subjects would point to the efficient functioning of all of the sub-components. Examples of these sub-components would be short-term memory, semantic processing, storing and accessing information, attentional components, etc.); However, poorer grades would not necessarily point to where the particular cognitive deficit lies. Perhaps the student needs time to retrieve information, or perhaps has difficulties in expression.
So an answer to a question relating to the monitoring of academic progress, should not just centre on the use of essays, intelligence tests , group assessment, oral or aural assessments, etc. A more complete answer would consider cognition, motivation, culture, creativity and discipline. All of these aspects would inter-link.
The cognitive approach would suggest that teachers should be aware of the various sub-components of each task. An English teacher might want to keep records on a student’s improvement in attention. It would also be important for the teacher to be aware of the situations in which in-attention occurs. By understanding what tasks cause in-attention the teacher then may have a clue as to what the sub-component deficits might be. Perhaps the student has a problem with short-term memory. Perhaps there is a problem with understanding the basic structure of a topic and relating points to the structure. For example, the student may have difficulty in understanding how an increase in car use relates to the topic of global warming. They would leave the lesson having remembered that car use is on the increase, but without realising what this has to do with global warming. The student may not even have a clue as to what global warming means!
A consideration of what the teacher needs to be aware of, leads naturally into how she or he can monitor their students’ progress. Record keeping needs to be simple; Turning the teacher into a classroom bureaucrat, would leave them with little time to actually teach A loose-leaf note book for each class could be one approach. Pages could be allocated for each student. Simple codes could be used to record the nature of the problem, supported by additional comments if felt necessary. At reasonable intervals, perhaps once a term, the notes could be summarised, and the student’s progress noted, by comparing the present summary with previous ones.
These classroom records would also contain information about the child’s motivation. The primary teacher might find that a student’s motivation is related to the subject being taught, or it could be more general. The teacher could assess the child’s self- efficacy or locus of control. The level of arousal could be assessed, and reasons discovered for sleepiness, hyperactivity or stress. Interventions might involve the co- operation of the child’s parents, a welfare worker or educational psychologist.
The child’s culture would need to be taken into account whilst assessments are made. A child might use a variation on standard English at home, and this could be seen as incorrect if standard English is expected. Measurements that take account of English usage would give a misleading view of the child’s’ communication skills. Tests that assumed an everyday knowledge of the culture of the majority would disadvantage minority children.
Creativity, is one skill that is often not encouraged by teachers. A child that conforms and obeys the teacher to the letter, might be preferred to one that spends much time going their own way. A standard way to test for creativity is the unusual uses test, where the child might be asked to think of as many different uses for a brick, nylon stocking, paper clip, etc. A teacher might want to keep a record of novel ideas or actions that a student might produce. A student with impoverished imagination might be encouraged to undertake tasks that involve divergent thinking. Periodic reviews could reveal an improvement in creativity. Of course, a teacher would need to be aware that a child who is not at the Piagetian ‘Formal operational’ stage may find it difficult to think beyond tangible real world experiences. For example, a concrete operational stage child would not be able to imagine the consequences of humans having tails. Whereas formal operational children might readily see a need in the market for products that beautify tails or a need in a redesign of lifts (or elevators). It would therefore, be necessary to norm reference the creative activity of a child, in order to see whether the child is above or below average.
A child’s discipline problems could be looked at in finer detail. A teacher would be able to discover whether the child is playing to an audience, whether certain situations produce bad or good behaviour. Perhaps the poor discipline points to an attentional deficit. This would lead you back to the cognitive approach.
The above provides a few issues that would need to be considered when answering a question on student progress. It is important to consider both the theoretical and practical problems. It is no point suggesting that over-worked teachers should spend all of their time testing and record keeping, they should be left to get on with actually teaching. It is also important to understand that teaching can be made more effective if the needs of each child are identified.