Multiple choice or Essay

Testing is a weary subject to speak about because many students are different learners and as teachers we do not know which type of tests students are comfortable with for instance, multiple choice, true false, or essay tests. Grade school and Middle school is the hardest, because they are young students. When I was in FTA (Future Teachers of America) I saw students in the 1st grade get so confused with multiple choice questions because they know the answer but then they start to over think because the other answer looks right to them because it is written backwords. Another example is students who really do not know the multiple choice answer but they know how to explain it in their own words, so they start to guess. I feel as though essay tests are the best to use in a classroom. They give the student a chance to express their feelings toward the question as well as information to answer it. Essay tests give students a chance to gain points rather than get the whole answer wrong with multiple choice. Lastly they gain knowledge when they read the answer and give their explanations, the understand and remember more rather than with multiple choice.
Multiple choice is not always bad though. Its good with different things such as for example students in kindergarten or 1st grade. Giving them names of different objects then multiple choices of different pictures to choose from of what the name was of, like bicycle then they choose multiple choice C which is a picture of a bike. Also synonyms and antonyms would be good for multiple choice. But what I prefer and I feel what helps me is essay testing.

Portfolio

I feel as though portfolios are great to use in a classroom with students. Portfolios help students to keep track of their work. It is a collection of a students work over time and it presents the students best work. Also students get to demonstrate their educational growth. The only thing that is bad is some students do not get to show their progress because some teachers dictate students and tell them what should be in their portfolios. Portfolios are great because they help the students as well as teachers and parents who look back at the work and they see what things were wrong and their best work at the end. They show students the importance of them. Portfolios help to make assessment easier. Students work is in order from beginning to end and it makes it easier for teachers and students to evaluate it. Also parents can look at their child's work and know where the grade is coming from. I like Portfolios and would not mind having it in my classroom.