Spring Symposium

I had a great time at the spring symposium last Friday, both at the poster presentation and the oral presentation parts. During the poster portion I was able to share my research with a career coach from Lebanon. We both talked about career education and the differences between the curriculum in both countries where we currently work. She informed me that career education starts a lot later in Lebanon, and that teaching about careers to younger students is unheard of. Although her culture is very different from my own, she was interested and intrigued by the way we teach career education to our students, specifically those in middle school. 

Formal and Informal Assessments

Reading and learning about this chapter was interesting because I began to think of ways I do both types of assessments. Last week I touched on the fact that I have given personality tests to students, which falls under the formal assessment category. As I thought of ways I give informal assessments, I imagined every day I meet with students at my site. Each time I meet with a student I ask them how they are doing, which is a type of informal assessment through self-reporting. I do this in the hallways when I see any of my students as a quick way to check in. I also observe students in the lunch room to see how they interact with other students, if they are eating that day, and who they sit with. These observations allow me to gain a better understanding of my students as a whole, rather than by just talking with them every week, once a week. I have also done a genogram with one of my students in order to gain a better understanding of the people she would frequently mentioned, and how each one played a role in her life. 

Clinical Assessments

While planning on reading this chapter I started to think about clinical assessments and begin to process that I won't be using these, so reading this won't be that necessary. My thoughts on this changed completely after reading the first couple of pages as I began to realize that even though I may not be administering these assessments, I will come into contact with the results at some point during my career as a school counselor. I have sat in on meetings where clinical assessment reports were read to the group in order to have a better understanding of the student's life. Also, if I were to consult with my student's outside counselor through a release of information, I might want to ask about any clinical assessments that have been conducted.

Before reading this chapter, assessments such as the BDI and the Myers-Briggs were the type of evaluations I thought of when I heard clinical assessments. I didn't even connect that I have used some form of clinical assessment when I worked with the career coach at my last site, as well as when I conducted guidance lessons on career readiness for 7th and 8th grade students at my current site. All the students completed a personality assessment that left them with their Holland codes. Since the students were in class sizes of approximately 15-20 in a computer lab, I went around to each student, once they completed the assessment, and explained to them what their results me. Even though I wasn't in a clinical setting and one-on-one, I still was able to complete a clinical assessment for 200+ students. 

Intellectual and Cognitive Functioning

Last week in class we were able to complete a sample of an intelligence test. I felt pretty confident during the first couple of questions, but that soon changed once I flipped the page and started to get into more difficult questions. The seven minute time limit soon seemed daunting and just another piece to worry about while completing the test. Once time was called I realized I didn't answer all of the questions; this bothered me because I usually don't have a problem with finishing tests on time. Going through the answers I found that I got only half of the questions right, which was also bothersome to me because I usually do really well on assessments.

Completing this type of timed test made me think of myself in someone else's shoes. This "someone else" may be an individual with testing anxiety because I felt anxious when I heard we had two minutes left and I wasn't positive that all my answers were correct.

Assessment of Educational Ability

Last week the 'Why This Matters' presentation spoke on the assessment of educational ability. I was interested in this topic because I am currently, and will be, working in a school as a school counselor. The pros and cons activity helped me to really understand what the positives are of standardized testing, mainly because I didn't have strong views of this type of testing. Now that I am more aware of the positive impact that testing may have on students, I feel more prepared as a school counselor to be a more positive influence on my students and the faculty in my school when it comes to testing and assessment.