This week I learned about creating assessment tools and monitoring them for bias and questions that could be misleading. I also learned about the Seven Rules for Test Formulation and that really helped me as I was thinking about how I would assess students in my own classroom. I realized the need for different types of assessment, and how important it is to use on-going assessment, not just one big test at the end. I also confronted my own feelings about essay tests being computer graded and I discovered that I was not totally against it, especially if a ‘real person’ also went over the essay. In the past I felt that only a human being could grade an essay test because a computer would not have the skill set to read into what I would call ‘emotional’ assessment versus True-False questions or multiple choice, which I would call ‘un-emotional’ types of assessment. What I learned though is that perhaps computers can, when the correct parameters are set, contribute to essay assessments in a more time efficient way.
What is less clear to me is how to keep bias out of assessment. With the diversity of the students in our classrooms, I find it hard to come up with a way to make assessments that are fair to all the different groups we will encounter. Can you make a test that is fair to all students?
