Education and assessment

 Education is not a word, it is a world by itself, and each point that can be listed under this word is a field where you can spend your life trying to cover all its part and never reach that point. It is not something that you can learn in several years and stop. In education there is always something to know, something to improve, something to advocate, work for, and reach it like any other science or domain.

        Some people think that as long as they have knowledge about a certain substance, they can enter any class and be teachers. Teaching is much more than that and they need to improve themselves as teacher in each step and each part of it. One important part of teaching is assessment. We may not be aware that an assessment tool may or may not reflect the real level of the students but it certainly reflects the level of the teacher who crafted or used the assessment tool.

         If you search for the meaning of educational assessment in different sources, you will find that it is defined as documenting students according to their knowledge, skills, altitudes, and their beliefs in measurable terms. Students usually give a great concern for the results of educational assessment, they evaluate themselves based on the results of the assessment, and these results in sometimes may decide the life path of the students. All these points explain clearly the responsibilities that the teachers should be aware of while crafting an assessment tool and while interpreting the results. Here comes the word validity, which is defined as the soundness of the interpretation and the uses of student’s assessment results. In order to assign grades fairly for the students based on a classroom assessment the validity of the scores, must be improved depending on clear criteria and evidences.

Determination and Hard Work

 

 

 

 

"Things turnout to be the best for those who make the best way of the way things turnout"

It is a complicated quote but it is valuable. Never wait things to be good for you, instead you should work hard and do your best to get the best of everything. Have a clear goal, use your determination, work hard, and never lose hope.

Things will not be done spontaneously, things are waiting your efforts, and problems will not be fixed alone, problems are waiting your solutions.

Don't under estimate any opportunity in your life; you never know where you may end up after any simple experience. It is about making something out of nothing, or even making something good out of something bad.

Bad things will keep happening but this shouldn’t stop you, obstacles are not signs to stop working, they are signs to work harder. Failure is not the end, it is the beginning of the change in your life No matter how bad something is, there is always something good behind it. So, never regret something that happened or might happen with you because it always turn out to be good for something.

Look for the filled part of the glass but don’t ignore the empty part and use your determination to fill it, and make use of it. It is amazing what determination can do, and how it can change your life.

Childhood Dreams

                 

                              Ambition or Future Disappointments?

Every one of us had a childhood dream, maybe we didn't achieve these dreams, maybe we are still working on them, and maybe we will never achieve them, because these dreams are really impossible and we realized that long time ago and gave up on them and got disappointed. Even if these childhood dreams were silly and impossible they certainly had a great effect on our path in life. What do these dreams represent? Our ambition or our disappointments? Should we encourage our children to dream or inhibit them from dreaming?

We might be allowed to put limits to our dream now and rationalize them because we are mature enough but, as teachers and parents are we mature enough to put limits for our children's dreams? Well, I don't think so, we can't decide which dream is achievable and which one is not, we can't put limits to their abilities and to their imagination. It is their mind and their ambition whether they can achieve it or not. Whatever these dreams are, they will give them a push to work and become a better person and achieve something even if they didn't achieve their real dream.

Unfortunately, in our homes and schools we still can find parents and teachers making fun of the children's dreams, without realizing that they are stealing their rights, and suppressing their abilities. They think that they are protecting them from future disappointments, don't they know that these are the best kind of disappointments?! The kind that can make you laugh proudly in case that these dreams became disappointments.

Hope is all we have and hope is what we should give to our students and we should give them a chance to dream and encourage them to work for it. We don't have the right to steal the joy of dreaming from their eyes. Their dreams today may become our reality tomorrow.

     

Computer Aided-Assessment in Our Education

    Computer-aided assessment is a form of assessment that is based on using the computer whether summative or formative assessment (a type of exam used for learning and not for grading). The computer can be integrated to assessment to deliver, to prepare, or even to correct it. Computer-aided assessment is widely spread in our education without being aware of it. Technically, a computer typed assignment and an online research are forms of computer-aided assessment, in addition to online quizzes and exams which are greatly applied recently due to the fact that this kind of assessment can save time and allow learning and assessing from a distance.

    With all the advantages and the facilities provided by technology, you can still find educators arguing about integrating technology education while they are extensively relying on at least one form of the computer-aided assessment for example, they don’t accept hand written assignments.

    Technology is a part of our education whether we are aware of that or not, and if it’s not present in the teaching method, it will be clear in the assessment in one way or another.

NEVER DROP OUT!

It is not a choice! 

Even though the importance of education in our world is clear and the benefits of education are clearer, one can still find high percentage of the youth who dropout school and never reach the college. I will try to introduce you to some good reasons to continue your education at least to the college level.

Better life skills:

Staying in the high school will definitely provide you with better life skills. In addition to better reading, writing, and analyzing, you will have a better problem solving skills. A high school graduate is always characterized by discipline, motivation, and ambition. All of these are qualities that will help you to live a more successful and intellectually fulfilling life.

Higher earning potential:

Those who only think and plan for the short time will find that dropping out school and getting a job is better and will put some money in their pocket in a short time. But, in the long term dropping out school is a huge loss; this is statistically proved where the earning average of graduates is much higher than the earning average of school dropouts. This isn’t all; people with high school diploma have a great chance to keep their jobs and to be promoted.

Further educational opportunities:

Most interesting careers require a college diploma and most colleges require one to have high school diploma. So, it’s really worth working for.

All these advantages are for high school graduates, but we shouldn’t forget about college that is a continuation for a high school and the way for a better life.

Going to college will open you many doors of career paths that grantee you a better income, and you will find out that in some cases the college degree is the lower requirement for the best jobs. In college the best social skills are acquired and practiced in order to be used in the future career and future life in general. College graduates have a great ability to succeed in whatever path they take, and can deal with problems rationally that’s what makes them qualified to be in any career in all fields and gives them a chance to be a better future parent for a better family based on education.

Try to get educated as much as you can, it’s never a waste.