Evaluation and classification are the result of testing students, which should be approached by every teacher particularly tactfully in view of the nature and the psychological development of the student. The evaluation of students should be handled responsibly by the teacher as an experienced educator with full level of dedication and concentration. In general, the teacher’s operation can be considered pedagogically tactful if the controlling and educating functions of testing, marking and evaluation are balanced and do not discourage students to continue learning, but rather motivate them further to acquire more knowledge and experience.
Every teacher should impress their students with their teaching skills and the ability to generate motivation for learning. The teacher’s attitude to students, the way how the new material is presented, how the lessons are managed or the instructions in practical exercises are demonstrated, often lead to the situation that even those students who so far had shown no interest in a particular subject or lesson start to learn, ask questions and request additional information. In other words, by the open and friendly approach of educators to students, students feel motivated and try to prepare for the lessons more thoroughly and honestly, which obviously has a direct impact on the subsequent evaluation of results. It is then also possible to suggest that a certain chain is created when the student due to the motivation by good evaluation (which was the result of his good answers or scores) begins to learn by himself on a regular basis in an effort to get good marks again.
Thus, the student is motivated, which is extremely important in the education process.
At the same time, it is also necessary to keep in mind that each student responds differently to the mark or the result of evaluation regardless of the way it was carried out. For the student with good learning and practical results a worse mark can act as a stimulant, but also as a deterrent reflected in his refusal of studying. Similarly, if the student with not so good results gets a better mark, the effect can even be negative, because he may think that a better mark was given to him at random or out of pity, as a result of which he may lose the appetite for learning and then if consequently he gets a worse mark he will be discouraged again. To avoid the above case, the teacher should be giving marks objectively and evaluation should reflect the true, real level of student’ knowledge of the subject required by the curriculum. This means that differentiating in evaluation is an important part of evaluation requirements and learning results should be evaluated from different aspects and in different ways.
The evaluation of students’ learning results should also meet the requirement of adequacy. Each student should know and mainly understand the reason behind receiving a certain mark, because only in that case will the mark as one of the ways of evaluating knowledge be a means of improving the student’s relationship to learning and the acquisition of new knowledge, habits and skills.
Accordingly, it is appropriate and recommended for the teacher to explain to the student orally or in some cases even in writing why that particular mark was given to him and to explain all the positive and negative aspects of his performance indicating what direction his further learning should take.
When the teacher evaluates a number of tasks that the student had worked on during the whole lesson, the process is called whole-lesson marking. Whole-lesson marking is for some students
more significant or acceptable, because here the less appropriately or adequately completed practical tasks can be corrected, either by a more detailed explanation, an additional task or even by accomplishing a different task, which will show to an experienced teacher that the student understands the given subject matter, masters it and is able to apply the gained knowledge in practice.
Whole-lesson marking thus motivates students throughout the whole lesson of practical education to respond and be active.
The activity of students is of great benefit to the education process, and not only to students. For some teachers, achieving the activity of students is almost impossible even after twenty years of teaching experience. In other words, the teacher’s approach to students and the ability to arouse their interest in the task so that they initiate discussions on the lesson all by themselves is the best motivation for them.
As stated above, the evaluation of students is an essential part of the diagnostic process; it means the assessment of students and is present in all communication between teacher and student. The consequence of the student’s reply is the reaction of the teacher – the teacher may praise the student and award his response with a mark, the student may be asked for completion or submitted to criticism, etc. Nevertheless, the reaction of the teacher can also be non-verbal communication – a smile, wagging a finger, etc.
This is an indicator of the teacher’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the student’s response. The student’s performance (the response) is assessed in comparison with certain criteria, thereby maintaining the objectivity of evaluating the student’s intellectual and practical skills. This criterion in most cases is given explicitly and is unchanging (e.g. in the curriculum, education programmes or other educational documents). For the teacher, criteria are
significant aids in evaluation. Curricula in most cases quite precisely indicate the cognitive targets (knowledge and skills) that the student must be able to handle at the specified school age. Affective objectives, however, are set out in rather general terms (e.g. the student’s attitude, interest, motivation).
3.3 THE DIMENSIONS Of EDUCATIONAL