The fact is that student evaluation is a criterion measure for teacher effectiveness; there are no hard and fast rules on how to evaluate students; the target is to ensure that students understand what the teacher is teaching and make meaning out of it. It’s a failure on the part of the teacher who couldn’t ascertain whether or not students have assimilated the concept. Lets find out how do you evaluate your students?
Although the intricacies behind evaluation strategies can be quite complex because some students might appear to have understood a concept but in reality, they haven’t. Students have different levels of assimilation. When the same topic is taught to the same number of students, different strategies are required to evaluate every student. If after the evaluation strategies have been implemented and students aren’t demonstrating knowledge growth in a particular subject, then the teacher is ineffective.
Ways of evaluating students
1. Students’ performance;
In a bid to check students’ performance, a teacher needs to check the average score for the subject he or she is teaching. It’s usually done by summing the total scores of students and dividing it by the number of students. From the score, anything below 50% is considered bad performance and otherwise is a good performance. But most importantly, the average score has to meet the school’s proficiency target. Some schools might peg theirs to 70% and above before you’re regarded as a performing teacher.
2. Grade level Comparison;
With regards to grade level Comparison, the teacher will have to ascertain whether or not the number of students, at a particular grade level, are doing better than the previous years or slacking off. For instance, A mathematics teacher recorded over 70% of students’ performance in a certain grade level and then the next year he got a 50% pass. The simple analysis of the performance will indicate that students regressed.
3. Progress strategy;
This strategy tends to track the test scores from one point in time to another, usually from year to year when school tests or exams are written. The teacher tries to know the difference between each student’s score at different points in time—using equivalent tests.
4. Learning objectives;
Actually, this is not a specific type of evaluation, but rather particular learning goals for each student. The level to which students meet their specific objectives within a specified period is then evaluated. In this regard, teachers tend to ask students how far they have gone in accomplishing learning objectives.
5. Teacher’s evaluation;
In this regard, the school management will apply an evaluation procedure by providing a platform and a scorecard where students tend to evaluate the teachers on certain teaching and learning methodology. In this regard, therefore, each teacher in a school will receive, effectively, the same average growth results; the assumption is that the school as a unit is what affects students’ learning. And evaluating the teachers will help the school to ascertain the effect of teachers on the learning process.
Teaching methodology
The kind of teaching methods used by the teacher while teaching can be an evaluation strategy. The Geography in a certain high school uses the following ways to evaluate his students;
• Group presentation;
The Teacher will group the students into various sections, assign topics to be studied, and allow the students to teach within a limited time frame. From the presentations, he will evaluate the level of assimilation.
• Teaching Materials;
While teaching the students, he tends to use visuals, audiovisuals, slides, and images to relate to the concept being taught. To evaluate the extent of a student’s understanding, he would ask for the illustration of concepts with whatever the students could relate to the topic. And if they can relate any topic to something else then assimilation has set in.
• Assignments;
One of the most effective ways of evaluating students is through assignments. It will provide the opportunity to study and research deeply about the topic. With the answers submitted, the teacher will evaluate the student’s performance.
Importance of Student’s Evaluation.
1. To measure a student’s progress;
Evaluations are useful to identify the subject’s strengths, recognize areas of improvement, and understand students’ challenges.
2. Reformation of the education system;
The process of evaluating students tends to assist school administration to track the overall level of the school performance and determine the school’s weaknesses and what needs to be done to improve the areas of ineffectiveness.
3. One of the most powerful aspects of evaluation is that they are designed to measure content that is taught by teachers in a relatively short interval of time. Evaluating students will help reduce the high rate of failure. And to equip teachers with strong classroom management.
Conclusion:
Measuring students’ classroom skills is a critical part of an effective teacher. And It can be achieved primarily through close teacher observation to pinpoint the level of students’ performance. Before anything else, we have to understand that a student’s evaluation is a constant process. And it’s discouraging sometimes when there’s a negative outcome of the evaluation, however, there are no excuses for giving up.
