Name: Jhonny Llins Torres

Date: March 5, 2013

Reading Reflection
Title and Authors:

Butler, S. M., and N. D. McMunn. A teacher\'s guide to classroom

assessment. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass, 2006. 1-12. Print.
Chapter Title: Understanding the Varieties of Assessment
Summary:
This chapter presents the purposes of assessment and describes
assessment language. The authors want to establish a common vocabulary and
give the educators a starting point for increasing our assessment repertoire. The
chapter also gives an overview of some aspects we have to consider as we select
assessments to meet particular classroom goals or objectives.
The authors describe assessment purposes as summative and formative
ones. The summative assessment would be scored events that are placed in a
teachers grade book. These grades are evaluated into final grades for the end of a
marking period, course of study, or mastery of standards and are reported for
student achievement. Formative assessment sets targets for students and provides
feedback on progress toward those targets in ways that foster more progress. A
third purpose for assessment is diagnostic assessment. This assessment is
designed to determine students knowledge, skill or misconceptions prior to
planning instruction.
The authors also explain and outline assessment language: selected versus
constructed response, performance and product assessment methods, authentic
assessment, quality assessment, and tests.

Finally, the authors also delineate other issues surrounding tests such as
relevance, reliability, validity, use of standardized and High-Stakes tests, aptitude,
achievement, and non-referenced versus criterion reference tests.
Opinion:
One concept that the authors emphasize are this quotes, found on page 2-3:
Many texts use the terms assessment and evaluation
interchangeably. However, in our view the two terms are not
synonymous. Evaluation is a judgment regarding the quality of
worth of the assessment results
..Evaluation is mostly a summative process

I disagree with the authors in the sense that evaluation cannot be

considered firstly as a high-quality process (judgment of assessment work) and
then as a summative process. According to my experience as a Colombian
teacher, concepts are also different from country to country. Here, we have
assessment as evaluation and gathering the information as grading. A third word
Is needed to clarify concepts
Classroom Implications:
The classroom implications based on the ideas in this chapter are as
follows: considering the wide repertoire about assessment, which include functions,
purposes, concepts, methods and strategies; it is essential to view assessment
from different perspectives. As a result, I plan to learn and implement more and
new concepts about assessment so my judgment could be more objective and lead
my students to achieve their goals.