REFLECTION OF THE THIRD UNIT

REFLECTION OF THE THIRD UNIT

SELF-ASSESSMENT

Before reading this chapter and doing the assignments, I wasn’t very supportive of self-assessment. I believe that it is only intended for students who are truly aware of the importance of answering the self-assessment correctly in an honest way, and not giving themselves a higher or even lower mark.

But after reading everything that had to do with self-assessment, I learnt that self-assessment cannot be left aside, we shouldn’t rest importance from it, as it is as significant and relevant as formal or informal assessment. I believe that it is always important to consider and receive suggestions directly from students, that way we can learn from them too, in order to improve our classes or our teaching methods in the future.

But I also think that from all three, self-assessment is the most delicate one, because there are several factors that we should consider when we do it, and I think that the most important one is that we must be extremely clear with the students when we apply this type of assessment, because I think that we have to tell them that it won’t have an important weight in their final grade, or else, they will provide a higher mark. We must also choose the correct type of self-assessment, as we previously learnt, there are lots of types, and it would be according to our criteria that we have to choose an appropriate one, that would be both easy for the learners, but for us as teachers too, when it is time to make corrections.

So, I believe that self-assessment is a process that helps more the teacher than the students themselves, because with it, as teachers, we can realize if the goals that we established at the beginning of the unit, lesson or course were accomplished, and if the strategies that were applied are making a positive effect on the students, or if we need to change them. If we don’t pay attention to the students’ progress, their objectives and their needs, we won’t be good teachers, since we always have to remember to design each class and activity according to what the students need, expect, and their own capacity.