Alternative assessment, Traditional assessment or both?

               Traditional assessment includes simple forms of assessment such as a test or a quiz that has one correct answer and is aligned to specific standards to help student achieve the learning objectives. Also, traditional assessment is seen as the one assessment type that helps teachers and admins collect grades that can be posted in the report cards. The alternative assessment on the other hand is the assessment that help students retain what they learned and see how it is connected to the real world, these assessments do not have a unified final product as it can differ from one student to another, and they are more subjective compared to the traditional assessments.  

           Now which one is the best to use? Should teachers focus on traditional assessment and ignore alternative assessment methods? Or do they have to pick and choose to create the best assessment system for their students?

       Answering this question is not easy but I am more inclined toward the integrated approach which suggests that both types are needed to create a balanced assessment system.  This balanced assessment system depends on many factors, such as the subject’s nature, student levels and whether the subject is a core subject or an elective. For example, a robotic class will have more alternative assessment than algebra 2 class and first grade teacher will use more alternative assessment than a fourth-grade teacher and so on. 

              Overall, I think that schools, teachers and students are ready to use alternative assessment only despite its benefits on students’ engagement and motivation to learn.  Kong and Yuen conducted research to study students view on alternative assessment and they arrived at this conclusion “Although the students believed that​ ​alternative assessment was a practical and rewarding learning tool, they also found​ ​difficulties with it, such as a lack of teacher support. Local students' perceived context​ ​of alternative assessment has room for improvement, thus the attitude of alternative​ ​assessment and their engagement in alternative assessment were too not high​.” (2022, p.8).  

            Teachers are the experts in the classroom and with the help of their students they will be able to choose the forms of assessment that help every student excel in their own way.

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References  

​​Kong, S.-C., & Yuen, C.-N. (2022). An analysis of the attitudes and​ behaviors of ​university students and perceived contextual factors in alternative assessment during​ ​the pandemic using the attitude​–behavior–​context model. Heliyon, 8(10).​ ​https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e11180​