Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning

Evaluating how well a student can accurately remember facts and retell summaries of literary plot points is null in comparison to the importance of assessing what students interpret from their literary studies and how they choose to apply their understanding to their own thoughts and reflections. The goal of literature evaluations should hardly ever be based solely upon strict memorization and regurgitation of “key facts” and “observations of what others have said.”

While knowing the content well enough to pull facts out of the source material is useful, it has no inherent value unless these facts are discussed and students are allowed enough time to build connections, formulate questions and reflect upon their reactions and interpretations of the texts they are objectively reading. Therein lies the way to properly assess whether a thorough understanding has been achieved by the students. This selection ha provided wonderful insight into the experience and methods required to orient students away from strict, ambiguous fact memorization and regurgitation leading instead, towards reading the text, discussing the text within context relevant environments and creating relatable connections between the literary content and each students’ culture, past experience, likes and dislikes with the intent towards invoking a cause or motivation to actively understand and apply the literary content in a meaningful and rewarding way that will enrich the humanity of these students’ cultures and thought processes.

Creating opportunities for student feedback to actively shape their learning experience is a critical and non-negotiable part of evaluating student understanding and knowledge over the material an instructor has been teaching and learning alongside each student. While assigning essays on topics relevant to the literary text is a popularized and objective way of gauging student knowledge and research skills, Active and open discussion coupled with weekly student reflections can provide a more accurate representation of the students’ skill proficiencies, understanding and comprehension of the course material as comprehension and understanding is a subjective element that relies inherently on critical thinking, interpretation and personal connections to the subject matter.