Assessment instruments at the top

Assessment instruments at the top .-

Introduction .-
The assessment instruments or techniques are the tools used by the teacher needed to provide evidence of the performance of students in a teaching and learning.

The word instrument means working hand tool. Every profession has its particular instruments that were created over the years by men.

The tools are not ends in themselves, but is helpful for obtaining data and information on the student, so the teacher should pay close attention to their quality as an inadequate instrument causes a distortion of reality.

In higher education, the evaluation to know the skills acquired by students who will serve in the world of work, so can not be done only through written tests but through contextualized tasks.

The assessment instruments most used are:
1 .- Research
a) Individual
b) Group
2 .- Exhibitions
a) Individual
b) Group
3 .- Tests
a) Partial
b) Final
4 .- Observation
a) systematic
b) unsystematic
5 .- Portfolio
6 .- Concept Maps
7 .- operative tests
8 .- Projects
9 .- Knowledge tests
10 .- Interview.

1 .- RESEARCH:The scientific research is the pursuit of knowledge or solutions to scientific and cultural. There are also technological research, which is the use of scientific knowledge for the development of "Technology."

An investigation is characterized as a process:
Systematic: from formulating a working hypothesis or objective, data are collected according to a preset plan that, once analyzed and interpreted, amended or added new knowledge to existing ones, then started a new cycle of research. The systematics used in research is the scientific method.

Organized: all members of a research team must know what to do throughout the study, using the same definitions and criteria for all participants and act identically in doubt. To achieve this, it is essential to write a research protocol that specifies all the details related to the study.
Objective: The study conclusions are not based on subjective impressions, but on facts that have been observed and measured, and that his interpretation avoided any bias that the investigators might have.

Research is a process that, by applying the scientific method attempts to obtain relevant and reliable (credible and credit), to understand, verify, correct or apply knowledge.

The research helps us to improve the study because it allows us to establish contact with reality so that we know better. Is a stimulus for creative intellectual activity. Help to develop a growing curiosity about problem solving, also contributes to the advancement of critical reading.

2 .- SHOWS:
An exhibition is an act, usually public, which show objects (works of art, archaeological finds, instruments.
An oral presentation of a topic before a group can be as individual or group.

Oral individual techniques: a) we talked) Conferenciac) COLLECTIVE ORAL DiscursoTécnicas of: a) Diálogob) Entrevistac) Discusiónd) Debatee) Mesa redondaf) Simposiog) Panelh) Foroi) Seminar

3 .- REVIEW:
An examination, test or trial is a type of evaluation is usually done on paper and intended to measure the knowledge, skills, abilities or other aspects of a student. The tests commonly used in the educational field, in the professional field, in the field of psychology.

Tests can be:
Closed-ended questions
Multiple choice questions
Open-ended questions


4 .- NOTE:
It is an informal assessment technique used to notice when students learn, what they say or do. It may be incidentally or intentionally unsystematic or systematic, open and focused, in natural or specially created.

Systematic observation is that in which the observer is pre-defined objectives and therefore, know what aspects are evaluated.

Unsystematic observation is that which concerns the casual experience, of which the observer records the greatest number of information without prior correlate with clearly defined objectives.

In systematic observation, presenting the objectives to be achieved, criteria and indicators of quality of outreach. For example, if the objective is to determine if the student is able to install an incandescent lamp with a simple switch, the teacher can observe the following criteria and indicators:
• correct selection of components needed for the installation of the lamp;
• Proper installation process, or sequence, precautions and techniques;
• product (installation of the lamp) in the required technical quality and its role in the case, turning on the switch.

Some tools that help the realization of the observation are:
• check-lists, list of aspects to be observed in student performance;
• rating scale set of statements, arranged so as to enable the positioning of students in it;
• anecdotal or occurrence records, registration of such events as they occur, revealing significant aspects of student behavior.

Whatever form of assessment, the important thing is clear to students the ways in which teachers will be evaluated and to allow observation of aspects to be evaluated.

Some care in relation to the art of observation:
• select the important aspects to be observed;
• determine time of formal registration, so there is no accumulation of information without immediate use;
• use observation in their role essentially formative, that is, the data serve to introduce improvements in the teaching and learning;
• making the observation a stimulating environment for student self-assessment;
• be cautious, that is, the observer must avoid hasty generalizations and interpretations, no use of bias.
• avoid subjective judgments of a personal nature;
• maintain dialogue between observer and observed.

5 .- PORTFOLIO:
The portfolio assessment: This consists of a collection of productions or works, such as testing, analysis of texts, written compositions, mathematical problems solved, drawings, sketches, reflections, recordings, etc..

The portfolio is a tool that allows the compilation of all work done by students during a course or discipline. It can be technical visits grouped data, summaries of texts, projects, reports, various annotations. The portfolio also includes tests and self-evaluations of students.

The purpose of this tool is to assist students to develop the capacity to evaluate their own work, reflecting on it, improving their product.
The portfolio offers the teacher the opportunity to get references from the class as a whole, from the individual analysis, focusing on the development of students through the process of teaching and learning.
Portfolios involve not only the compilation of work. As a motivational tool of reflective thinking, foster opportunities to document, record and organize the procedures and learning. It is for this reflection that the student can, with help from the teacher to verify what needs to improve on their performance. On the other hand, the portfolio allows the teacher to get to know her students, their ideas, their expectations, their conception of the world.
The portfolio has a structural function, an organizer of learning and an unveiling function and stimulating personal development processes.

The portfolio is an instrument of dialogue between teacher and student developed and elaborated in the action, so that possible new ways of seeing and interpreting a problem and fix it. Thus, portfolios can not be written on a weekend afternoon or end of any given day, but long letters are always enriched by new information, new perspectives, new ways of thinking about solutions.
The portfolio of a student who went through various experiences on environmental conservation suggests the following:

"I really liked to have done work on energy saving. This subject has been shown as current and very important. My math teacher when he taught us percentages, showed that every electrical appliance in a household has an average participation in consumption. The refrigerator according to the professor, is the largest consumer appliance energy consumption by 30%, then comes the electric shower with 25% and then television with 10% of consumption. After this class, I I was thinking that we also waste energy and need to better analyze the time we spend on certain things. Say for example we do not have time to visit friends or to look after the house is to forget that which determines the use we make of our time, we are. I figured I even spent five minutes of my day to read a newspaper story or a short text. I think we learn more. "
This evaluation technique can be used in all disciplines and can evaluate different curriculum (concepts, skills, strategies, attitudes, values, etc.).
The ultimate goal is to have samples of works that do contain the learning and progress of pupils during a school term.
Allows a joint reflection: teacher evaluation, teacher-student co-evaluation, peer assessment and mutual self-evaluation.

6 .- TEST OPERATIONS:

The operative test proposed by Ronca and Terzi (1991) is an assessment tool that is intended to verify the student's ability to operate with the learning content.

The operative word is operating which means elaborate and complex action, for example, analyze, classify, compare, critique, and generalize hypotheses.

The operative test has the merit of having done with the classic ways to assess especially in relation to the concepts of right and wrong.

The intent of this test is step by step guide student learning, clearly stating the objectives of the questions which are raised in an isolated or fragmented. The questions are formulated that encourage the student to abandon the simple recall of information in exchange for establishing relations with facts, events and ideas to make you realize that nothing happens in isolation.

In test operations, the problems must be directly related to the content studied, bearing in mind that this content is not an end in itself but a bridge to think or operate thought. Thus, there is a difference between memorizing containing hygiene techniques for the preparation and storage of a food product for example and understand the significance of each of these techniques.

In the operative test is required to read and write since they are tools that require the stimulation of thought.

7 .- ANALYSIS AND RESOLUTION OF CASES:

Another interesting technique is the analysis and resolution of cases.
To Jonassen (Depresbiteris, 2002) are cases triggers a process of thinking, stimulating doubt, the lifting of assumptions and the verification thereof, of inference and divergent thinking. For him, the use of authentic tasks derived from real cases are fundamentally significant for being true, which makes for people to have greater credibility and meaning.

Jonassen (op.cit) argues that to use risk assessment using case it is necessary to produce a constructivist learning environment. significant. This method helps the student's intellectual development to the extent that learning is not to copy or reproduce reality, point by point. According to constructivism, we learn when we are able to develop a representation of an object of reality or trying to learn content.
On the other hand, build is not invented. It must, for example, encourage the student to use the spelling of a creative and unconventional, but that creation should be culturally linked to the establishment, so that communication and understanding occur.

A strategy to realize this is the presentation of cases for analysis and solution.
It is interesting to build a database with these examples of analysis and resolution of cases that can be made in writing or by video.
The strategy to follow is:
• Analyze a case dramatized in written or video programming;
• Describe, from the case, the problems presented;
• The student has to solve the present case and explain how she came to give us important information about the student's skills.

8 .- Concept Maps:
The concept map is a technique of self-evaluation of the constructivist approach in which learning is mainly expressed as an internal process. The evaluation criteria, therefore, not be confined only to observable behaviors.
The main purpose of a conceptual map is to analyze the thought processes of students. The maps are indicative of the degree of differentiation that a person establishes between the concepts.

It's a way to make students think about relationships that had not previously observed.

With concept maps can verify, for example, if a student is able to distinguish between general and specific concepts on a topic as hierarchical management delivered through the map, represents the set of relationships between a concept and its subordinate concepts.

The map on the principle that there is an evolution in learning when the learner recognizes new relationships and conceptual links between sets of concepts or propositions. In this sense, learning becomes significant.
To evaluate by means of concept maps can be:

• Choose a key concept and ask students to draw a map that is capable of showing all the concepts and relationships that can connect with him
• Select multiple concepts of a topic and ask students to make a map with them, making them clear and checking the right connections and wrong.



9 .- PROJECTS:
The project is a useful tool for assessing student learning, since it allows to verify the capabilities of:
• represent objectives to be achieved;
• describe properties which will be worked;
• anticipated interim and final results;
• choose appropriate strategies to solve a problem;
• implement the processes and actions to achieve specific outcomes;
• assess conditions for the solution of the problem;
• follow established criteria.
The proposed project can be individually and / or team. In team projects, in addition to the capabilities described above can be verified, for example, the presence of certain attitudes such as respect, ability to hear, make decisions together and solidarity.
Here's an example of a project for the area of ​​Tourism
Prepare a visit to the south of the country. This tour will visit important historical sites in the area. In this project should be clear:
• Planning tasks.
• Research conducted on the most important aspects of that period.
• Costs.
• Design an itinerary.
• Development of the visit itself.
• Assessment of project participants.

10 .- TESTING PRACTICES:
Practical tests require that a systematic observation.
The suggested steps for developing a practical test are:
• Define the competition that will be evaluated.
• Select one or more tasks that allow the manifestation of the competition.
• Develop the test.
• Validate the test with a student.
• Apply the test.

11 .- THE INTERVIEW:
The interview is a technique that facilitates the collection of quantitative data and qualitative. Can be individual or group.
The great advantage of the interview is that it allows immediate and continuous uptake of the desired information. Lets also delve into some aspects that were observed in a superficial manner.
The instrument that accompanies the interview technique is the script of questions. For quantitative data collection, the script of the interview is more closed, in qualitative data collection, the script may have a basic structure of questions that will be enriched as you want to deepen certain aspects.