Evaluations And Their Relationship With Learning

Evaluations and their relationship with learning

The evaluation allows to give effect to the fulfillment of teaching learning, as well as knowing the degree of knowledge, where the teaching of the teacher and the learning of the students are interrelated, in that sense the new proposals conceive the evaluation as part of the didactic action situation.

It is not a component that is incorporated at the end of the learning process to assess it, but is a fundamental part of the teaching process itself. Therefore the evaluation is a key piece to improve the quality of learning and the development of skills, because it is an instrument of improvement in all its processes, planning, didactic intervention, etc. So, as a result, the evaluation is a continuous valuation activity that occurs within the framework of the processes that occur in the classroom and where all the actors involved in these are involved. On the other hand, the evaluation is used as an instrument of analysis in the teaching and learning process, that is, as a mechanism for obtaining information and making educational decisions, in search of a change and benefit for the entire educational community.

The first characteristic to have an evaluation that aims to favor learning is that it can be perceived by students as a real help, generating positive expectations. But the didactic problem that is posed to teachers is how to get this expectation to be met, that is, that the evaluation promotes that you learn more and better and, in addition, find pleasure in it (Sanmartí, 2004).

The evaluation helps students to monitor their advances in the understanding, acquisition and development of skills, through the feedback provided by the teacher and the self-assessment developed by the student himself, also has a social dimension that enables therecognition of learning and their accreditation against society. De la Torre (2009) states that “the evaluation is the process to determine to what extent the previously established objectives or purposes of learning, of a subject or teaching or subject unit of an educational level” are achieved ”. This is an activity that is part of the didactic process, which, in this, makes sense, because it allows to obtain information regarding the various elements that converge during pedagogical action.Cerda (2003) thinks in a similar way: in his work the evaluation as a total experience affirms that, in general terms: we understand by evaluation the action of judging or infer judgments about certain information directly or indirectly collected from the reality evaluated, attribute or denyqualities or qualities to the object evaluated or simply measure the effectiveness of a method or the results of an activity.In this way, the evaluation can be perceived as a global process, in which its only reference is not only the student but also the teacher, the institution and even the educational community itself.

The evaluation can be considered integral if the dimensions of the student’s development in its different aspects take into account;systematic because it is organized based on pedagogical principles and is related to the purposes of education;flexible because it takes into account the rhythms of student development and the needs of their context;participatory since it involves several agents and promotes self-assessment and evaluation.

Teachers are not indifferent observers in the classroom but are interested, vitally involved in the flow of symbolic exchanges of the classroom psychosocial group;which means accepting social responsibilities for the quality of their interventions;being valued based on their effects and in the development of their students;that they inevitably and systematically and the sense of the teacher in the successes and student failures. Its activity is not linear or casual but an intentional activity, loaded with values, in a psychosocial medium of interinflies, where the actors interpret and project their particular world of constructed meanings (Gimeno and Pérez, 1995).

Evaluating presupposes the teacher-contemporary-student interaction;of interrelated phases and not as singular or punctual actions. Demand consider the multiplicity of circumstances, properly, of the dimensions that affect the gaze towards its protagonists and the processes and actions in the development of competencies and potentialities of the student;becoming aware of the process, valuing and providing help at the required time (Serrano, 2002).

When evaluating, circumscribes the following evaluation periods:

• The initial (prior) evaluation: occurs in the opening of the teaching-learning process. Its goal is to determine the degree of preparation of the student prior to the new learning, forecasting, difficulties and foreseeable successes (Rosales, 1988).
• The procedural evaluation (continuous): offers permanent information, by controlling the planned;or if on the contrary, devices appear to distort them, force their rectation. It is formative, when detecting when there is a difficulty, the causes that cause it and the corrective to introduce, stipulating by the level of learning and specifying the not yet dominated aspects (Bloom, 1971). It is a systematic verification on the planned results, adapting it based on the achievements (Lafourcade, 1977). And, it is regulatory, showing not only the results of the process but the changes that reality demands (Gairin, 2009);or conversely, ensuring their adjustment to the people to whom it is directed.
• The final evaluation (confirmatory): determines whether learning has been achieved or not, and is the starting point for a new intervention. Take formative evaluation data, obtained during the process and add other more specific ones. Explore the objectives at the end of the instructional period. It has a sanctioning function, to the extent that it helps to decide the approved or not approved of a certain degree of studies, curricular area, etc. (Castillo and Cabrerizo, 2003).