a] Egeland provides a number of scriptural examples in which an
‘assessment’ takes place, from which he draws four conclusions. The question he
poses in response to these conclusions is worth considering in more detail: "with
this backdrop in mind, how does current thinking and research on student learning reveal
keys to appropriate assessments of education students?" In other words, how can the
assessment tasks and techniques we employ with our students be informed by sound biblical,
as well as educational, principles? How does one ‘assess’ an assessment?
b] What implications does the notion of individual differences in
learning styles have in terms of student assessment? Is there a balance to be found
between standardized learning and assessing, on the one hand, and individualized programs
on the other?
c] What features would be observable in an ‘authentic’
assessment task? How does this notion relate to ‘celebrating the diversity of
Christ’s body’? Is differential assessment a worthy, and a practical, ideal?
d] Choose an assessment task you currently use in any of your teaching
contexts. How does it rate against the issues of Validity/Reliability, Methods/Format,
Hidden Curriculum, and Feedback? How might this assessment task be modified in order to be
more ‘authentic’?
e] Egeland leaves us with a point worthy of serious consideration. If
we are to heed the words of Micah 6:8, how are we to engage in the assessment of our
students? To what extent are justice, mercy and humility hallmarks of our assessment
practices?
f] To what extent are your conceptions of evaluation and assessment
synonymous, overlapping, or disjoint? How does student assessment differ from an
evaluation of program design, course implementation, learning sequence, … resource
usefulness and effectiveness? How do your evaluation and assessment strategies integrate
content, skill, process, attitudes and value perspectives?