Comments on Youtube Video

TUTORIAL TASK (Week 1):

Give your thoughts on what was significant to you in the assessment used in the Youtube video.

As much as I am amazed at how much alternative assessments are being carried out overseas and of how effective the results are (and would like to share on alternative assessment as well), I would like to just highlight on one or two points which I think have not been touched on so far. (trying to spice things up here… ;) ). What I am interested to say here is that besides showing examples of how alternative assessments are being carried out, the video also points out that all these assessments should be done with at least some clear objectives, standards and/or criteria. In other words, we do not just do it anyhow we like to, just do it because we feel we like it or because this is the government’s new policy. Instead we should be looking at the rubrics of the assessment as how Anderson (1998) put it. And these rubrics or these learning objectives have to fit in, if possible nicely, with the curriculum set by the Ministry of Education.  

Secondly, we have to document the evidences on what that the students have done throughout the year and even years as in the video. This is to show that “you [the students] learn something substantial and significant that relates to school curriculum” (Dr. Wiggins, Grant). I think that multimedia portfolios like the ones done in the video are one good way to go. I believe these are some of the extra points that we need to pay attention to as well seeing that most of us would probably be those who are to implement these alternative assessment at school in a few years time.

Thirdly, I wish to post a question that we could perhaps discuss about as well. Seeing that we all have agreed on alternative assessment thus far, and hence against traditional assessment, let me just ask “Is it a choice only between traditional and alternative assessment or could the two actually complement each other?” Because at the end of the day, a high quality local assessment [alternative assessment] does indeed prove to support a higher test score (Dr. Wiggins, Grant).