Portfolios And Standardized Tests - Pros And Cons Essays

Portfolios And Standardized Tests - Pros And Cons Portfolios and standardized tests are two types of ways teachers can assess their students. There are many advantages and disadvantages to both assessments. Right now, whether teachers agree with standardized tests or not, all teachers have to give them to their students. Portfolios on the other hand, are not required in a classroom, because it is not a required assessment for all teachers to use. Portfolios are folders that hold students works in any or all subjects that teachers choose to use them for. They hold all different types of work a student creates. It has A work to work that needs more improvement on inside the folders. The students choose what goes in their portfolio, not the teacher. Standardized tests are tests administered to each student at the same time. They have a time limit to them and their test scores are based on the norm. Much of school-based assessment does actually prevent students from becoming thoughtful respondents to, and to be able to judge their own work. Portfolios help students learn to assess their own progress as learners, and teachers gain new views of their accomplishments in teaching. They also give students responsibility for taking the lead in evaluating their own work, enlarging the view of what is learned, a place for process and a developmental point of view. Some important things that matter when dealing with portfolios is a student's performance on the kind of skills that appear on tests, that first-draft work is good enough and achievement matters to the exclusion of development. There are centrally two aims that teachers have for student portfolios. The first is to design ways of evaluating student learning that, will be essentially providing information to teachers and school systems, it will also model personal responsibility in questioning and reflecting on one's own work. The second is to find ways of capturing growth over time so that students can become informed and thoughtful assessors of their own histories as learners. What teachers have students do is at the end of the school year, is let the student go back inside their portfolio and reflect on their own work. The students return to their portfolios or collections of work, and see what has changed from the beginning of the school year or what still remains to be done or worked on. This gives students a responsibility, because they are responsible for evaluating their own work. Authentic or performance assessments do provide opportunities for students and teachers to learn, often together, about the standards of good work with respect to more valued outcomes. Each student is often incorporated in as an active agent in the evaluative process, not as an object to be evaluated. The portfolio activity is a process of production, perception, selection, and reflection that is exercised by each student over his or her collections of school work. Portfolios even provide a school district with a level of achievement. Portfolios are profoundly important to children. All children have a natural ability and desire to tell a story through the contents of the portfolio. Student portfolios tell a story. The real contents of a portfolio are the child's thoughts and his or her reasons for selecting a particular entry. That selection process reflects the interests and the metacognitive maturity of a child and the inspiration and influence offered by the teachers. Portfolios serve as a metaphor for our continued belief in the idea that children can play a major role in the assessment scene of their own learning. Using an authentic assessment tool could provide a more realistic picture of each student's individual subject achievement and progress by demonstrating growth and development over a period of time, involving students in assessing their own growth and reflecting many aspects of students area of knowledge and understanding. Portfolios provide teachers with information about students' progress, thought processes, achievements and needs. They should accommodate teachers' and students' individual needs, while allowing students to take an active role in assessing their work and encouraging them to take responsibility for their own learning. Students should begin to set goals for themselves and check their progress toward reaching these goals. This will help promote self-esteem. Students and teachers

Did You Know You Can Delete ACT Scores How to Do It

Did You Know You Can Delete ACT Scores How to Do It SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Did you know it’s possible to totally delete a set of ACT scores you don’t like? Poof - just like that. A bad set of ACT scores can vanish. This isn't a well known fact, and in fact we were surprised to discover it ourselves. But it has big implications for how you test, especially if you're afraid of taking the test too many times because it'll look bad to colleges. We will explain how to delete ACT scores and discuss in which circumstances it might make sense. Read on for an exclusive guide to getting rid of bad ACT scores. What Does Deleting an ACT Test Score Do? Deleting a test record means you are completely erasing the scores from a particular test date. This includes both the overall composite score and the individual section scores. (For more on ACT scoring, see our post.) If you do this, those scores will be permanently deleted and you will never see them again. You also won’t get a refund for that test date. This is different from canceling scores – canceling stops the ACT from grading a particular test (students usually do this if they get sick or really struggle on test day). This means the scores never even exist because the test was never graded. For scores to be deleted, the test obviously has to be graded and scored first. We'll talk about some reasons students might delete an ACT test record below. Why Would You Delete an ACT Test Record? Basically, if you have an ACT score you’re unhappy with and don’t want colleges to see, you can delete it. Again, keep in mind you’re forfeiting the money you spent to get that score if you do this. This gets you around the requirement some colleges have to send all of your existing standardized test scores. For example, both Stanford and Yale require applicants to send all scores they have from the ACT or SAT. â€Å"Official scores from all test dates must be sent to Stanford directly from the ACT or the College Board (the reporting agency for the SAT) or both if the applicant has taken the ACT and the SAT. Applicants may not use the College Board's Score Choice feature or "hide" any scores with either testing agency," says Stanford on their admissions site. â€Å"You must report the scores of all of the SATs and any SAT Subject Tests you have taken, or all of the ACTs and ACT Writing Tests that you’ve taken," says Yale. However, if you delete an ACT score, it will no longer exist – making it impossible to send. I spoke with someone at the ACT who confirmed that colleges will not see scores you have deleted. Is this a bit of a sneaky workaround? Maybe. But if the ACT gives you the option to delete your test scores, there is nothing wrong with your using that service. By accepting the ACT as a standardized test, colleges have to also accept the ACT’s score policies, including score deletion. ACT Test Scores You Can't Delete Even though deleting ACT scores is possible in some cases, keep the following exceptions in mind. First, you can’t delete every possibleACT score you have. Specifically, you can’t delete scores associated with state or district tests. This is because those scores aren’t just for you, they’re used to evaluate your school and district. Furthermore, if you take the ACT as part of district testing, you didn’t pay for it. The ACT says students have the right to delete their scores because â€Å"students own their test scores.† In short, deleting only applies to testing that you paid for. A map showing the states that use the ACT as part of their testing. Image via ACT State Services. Second, deleting a test record won’t do anything about scores that have already been sent to colleges. So if you had your scores sent to colleges right after you took the ACT, you can't get those reports back. In fact, we recommend that you not send those four free score reports that come with your ACT registration because they’re sent before you know your score, which is pretty risky. Should You Delete Your ACT Scores? Don’t delete a test record before you’re sure of a few things. You don't want to act too quickly and completely lose a test record forever before you're positive you want it deleted. First, Where Are You Applying? Some schools, for example MIT, don’t require applicants to send all of their scores. â€Å"Students are free to use the College Board's Score Choice option and the ACT's option to submit the scores of your choice as well," they say on their admissions site. Harvard has the same policy: â€Å"You are free to use the College Board Score Choice option or the similar option offered by the ACT.† If you are only applying to schools that allow you to use score choice – or in other words to only send your best scores – you don’t have to worry about deleting bad ACT scores. To see if a school allows score choice, search for the â€Å"Standardized Testing† page on their application website. Schools will specify there if they want all of your scores or if they’ll let you use score choice. If the info isn't on the standardized testing page, check the Frequently Asked Questions. Also stay tuned for our post about which schools require all scores. Second, How Low is Low? In case you are applying to schools that require you to submit all scores, or even if you have a score you don’t think you would send if you had the choice, you should decide if that score is really too low to keep. See our guide to good, bad, and excellent ACT scores to see if the score you’re worried about is in range for your target schools. Don’t delete a score unless you’re positive it’s bad. This is especially true if your composite was lower than you wanted, but you had some high section scores. It’s possible that on a retake you could get a higher composite but have certain section scores go down, and you might want colleges to see those high section scores. For example, say your first ACT composite was a 26 but you had a 34 on the Math section. If you retake the ACT and get to a 32 composite but your math score is 30 the second time around, you would lose that high math score. Think carefully before deleting a set of ACT scores with any high section scores. Third, Don't Delete Your Score Too Quickly Do not delete your ACT score until you already have achieved a higher score on a retake. If you delete your score before you retake the ACT, what happens if you get an even lower score on the retake? Then you have lost your higher score and can’t get it back. The best case then would be to retake the ACT a third time, costing you more time and money. There is no rush on deleting your scores, so focus on retaking the ACT and getting a higher score before you worry about deleting a low score. Patience isn't only a virtue... it can save you time and money. Fourth, When Did You Take the ACT? If you took the ACT for a talent competition or other program in middle school or earlier, you don't have to delete those scores, even if they’re super low. Colleges are only concerned with standardized testing you took while in high school. If anything, participation in early talent programs will look good on college applications, so you have no need to delete a score from an ACT back in middle school. So How Do You Actually Delete an ACT Record? To delete a test record, you simply have to submit a written request to ACT. Provide your name and home address and state you wish to delete a test record. Mail the request to: ACT Institutional Services P.O. Box 168 Iowa City, IA 52243-0168 USA ACT will then mail you a form to complete and return. After you submit the form, the test record will then be permanently deleted from ACT’s records. There is no additional cost for this – however, you are forfeiting whatever you paid to take the ACT on that test date. What’s Next? Have an ACT score you’re not proud of? We have resources to help you prepare to knock your retake out of the park. Start by reading a guide to a perfect ACT score by our 36 full-scorer. Even if you're not going for a perfect score, these study principles can help you make the improvements you need to get a higher ACT score. Get strategies for reading ACT science passages, concepts you need to master ACT English, and learn how to stop running out of time on ACT Math. We recommend taking at least one full-length, strictly-timed ACT practice test to get used to the test format and build your stamina. Get links to free, official tests here. Want to improve your ACT score by 4 points? Check out our best-in-class online ACT prep program. We guarantee your money back if you don't improve your ACT score by 4 points or more. Our program is entirely online, and it customizes your prep program to your strengths and weaknesses. We also have expert instructors who can grade every one of your practice ACT essays, giving feedback on how to improve your score. Check out our 5-day free trial: