History

• When schools were in small communities, teachers gave feedback to students and their parents. With industrialization came larger schools, less personalization, and the need to provide colleges and employers with concrete results. Teacher assessments played a role in a student's future.
  
  

Grading as Judgment

• Teacher and pupil
  
  When teachers grade, they make a judgement about the quality of a student's performances. Emotions, preconceived notions of the student's abilities and outside factors influence these judgement. Involved parties know this and raise concerns to press changes in assessments.
  
  

Grade Point Average

• During training, future teachers take at least one class devoted to assessment because they will evaluate students daily. Daily grades make up a student's final grades, which schools have assigned a numerical value. This is the GPA, or grade point average. Colleges, scholarship committees and employers judge a student by the GPA.
  
  

Types of Assessment

• Assessment can be objective or subjective. Objective assessment includes multiple-choice, true-false, short answer and matching. Subjective assessment includes essay, performances, anecdotal records, checklists, portfolios and student-made products.
  
  

Expert Insight

• Objective assessments are easy to grade, yet often test only memorized information. Subjective assessments are more difficult to grade, The materials require more feedback, and parents, students and teachers may debate the results. Subjective assessments more accurately reflect a student's knowledge.