The Role Of Teachers: Assessing Vs Giving A Grade

We are definitely doing something wrong in the assessment if at the end of the semester there are only students who are tired, unmotivated, stressed and on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to the final assignments, which value more memory than learning itself. Many teachers give an assessment to see if the pupils are keeping up or not, forgetting that the assessment also serves to get an idea of ​​the quality of teaching. But what is the role of teachers?

It is very important to distinguish the concepts of evaluation and voting. A grade is only a consequence of the rating; very often, a number that says little. Yet evaluation is another way to learn. It is of little or no use to give one when it does not provide any information on how to improve.

Does a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 tell us more than just getting the grade we hoped for or didn’t expect?

The role of teachers: evaluating to learn

Evaluation is, or rather should be, an opportunity to put one’s knowledge into practice, to express ideas. A moment to stimulate doubts and questions.

This makes sense when the teacher is at the service of the learner, when the corrector uses the red pen, highlighting doubts and giving errors only the appearance of a starting point. When the evaluation is expressed simply to give a grade and not to stimulate improvement, it turns into a sad and meaningless act.

Nowadays, there is a widespread idea in many countries that teachers should focus more on skills than content. Not everything that is taught must necessarily become an object of evaluation, nor everything that is learned is evaluable.

Teaching is not just a question of knowledge, but of ways of reasoning. Learning is not just accumulating knowledge, but internalizing it and integrating it into one’s way of thinking.

Tasks that have the purpose of giving a grade and the role of teachers

Many tasks involve memorizing and repeating content. Easy to submit, easy to correct. They are part of a learning model in which parents and teachers expect pupils to repeat what they have been taught or observed, not what they have discovered, thought or imagined.

On the other hand, one thing that many ignore is that a task or question has enormous power: to capture the pupil’s attention. An aspect that is shrouded in a sort of mystery and that many undertake to limit, leaving little time for the pupil to respond.

In this sense, a well-planned task can be a continuation of the pupil’s learning process, time to reflect on what has been read and what has been heard.

Moreover, rarely do they have to do with personal or social contents, in favor of purely scholastic ones. They do not work on basic skills and take place automatically, without thinking critically about the answers.

Evaluate using the evaluation rubrics

As assessment tasks diversify in favor of skills development, precise assessment tools can also be used.

There are several tools used for the evaluation of learning outcomes, but among them the rubrics stand out, which are worthy of attention due to their versatility and their teaching potential.

The rubrics are guides to give a grade, and are used to evaluate the commitment of students that describe the specific characteristics of a product, a project or a task, on the basis of the different levels achieved by the performance. All this in order to clarify what is expected of the pupil’s work, as well as to evaluate his performance and to make it easier to give feedback. (Andrade, 2005; Mertler, 2001).

Benefits for students

Pupils will receive more detailed information than those provided by other tools (feedback) and will know the evaluation criteria in advance. Some of these criteria stimulate learning and self-assessment, promote global understanding and the development of various skills.

Advantages for the teaching staff

They are easy to use and explain to pupils and increase the objectivity of the assessment process. They offer feedback on the effectiveness of the teaching methods employed. They are versatile and adaptable to the needs of the competency assessment process.

A new way of conceiving evaluation: the role of teachers

Formative assessment is democratic and at the service of teaching and learning. Very valid when we need to be able to count on useful and relevant information, focusing attention both on the processes and on the contexts involved in teaching and learning. An effort must be made to recover the meaning of the terms “evaluation” and “attribution of a mark”.