INTELLIGENCE&TESTING

I believe that a child's intelligence and development should be tested and assessed. Children today are very intelligent, yet some have developmental delays, such as speech. A child can be academically intelligent, but lack what some call, "commen sense". A simple direction as, "go and get the pen off the table" can be confusing to some children, especailly if there's more than one table. I experience this daily with my students, more so with the ones who are academically intelligent.

Several examination systems in Africa have introduced, or are planning to

introduce, an element of school-based assessment in their public examinations (Greaney & Kellaghan, 2003). Indeed, some would hope ultimately, especially at the primary school level, to replace external examining completely with school-based assessment, perceiving that to be the only way in which the range of competencies specified in curricula can be validly assessed, and in
which the negative effects of external examinations on teaching and learning can be
removed (Greaney & Kellaghan, 2003). However, the implementation of school-based assessment as a component of public examinations has proved problematic (Greaney & Kellaghan, 2003). While the aspiration and motivation to introduce it have been high, practical difficulties have on more than one occasion resulted in failure, postponement, or the limitation of the school-based element to a minimal, almost token, amount (Greaney & Kellaghan, 2003). The assessment of students’ learning in the classroom (both by teachers and by students themselves) is an integral component of the teaching-learning process (Greaney & Kellaghan, 2003). Much of this kind of assessment is subjective, informal, immediate, on-going, and intuitive, as it interacts with learning as it occurs, monitoring student behavior, scholastic performance, and responsiveness to instruction (Greaney & Kellaghan, 2003). Its role is to determine students’ current level of knowledge, skill, or understanding, to diagnose problems they may be encountering, to make decisions about the next instructional steps to take (to revise or to move on), and to evaluate the learning that has taken place in a lesson (Greaney & Kellaghan, 2003).

Reference
Greaney, V. & Kellaghan, T. (2003). Monitoring performance: Assessment and Examinations in Africa. Retrieved from http://toolkit.ineesite.org/toolkit/INEEcms/uploads/1089/Monitoring_Performance_Assessment_Examinations.pdf