Educators should base their assessment of students learning not on students grasp of facts but on the ability to explain the ideas trends and concepts that those facts illustrate Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disag

Students are the pillars of tomorrow's world. They ought to be properly guided in order to take a country to greater heights. Bringing the students to the right path is the due responsibility of the teachers. A student spends most of his days at school and college. Hence it is of utmost importance that educators adopt the right method of assessing students' learning. The assessment must be based on how well the student is able to apply the facts learned to the real life situations.

First of all, many students today tend to mug up the facts and figures. Henceforth, they find an easy way to ace the exams with top grades. However, the rote method of learning, does not reflects one's real understanding. Many of the students, just mug up facts by forming mnemonics and other funny techniques. They never realize the applications of whatever they are learning. This is evident in the transition stage from school to college. In schools, students are given prescribed textbooks and they expect a set of questions to appear in their exams. But, when these students enter the college, the situation turns upside down. Only a thorough understanding of the subjects can help students ace their exams with outstanding grades in the college level.

Secondly, the grasp of ideas alone does not serve any purpose to one's life. The reason for many students blaming the education system of their country is that, they really do not know how to apply what they have learned to the real world. This conception can be rectified only if students are in a position to explain the concept and reason behind the facts they have learned. For example, while learning programming languages, students are often told to memorize the syntax. Instead of memorizing blindly, they must be taught about the background process: the phases of compilation of a program and why the syntax has to be given in a specified format. This will create interest in learning new things and the students will also benefit out of application-oriented critical reasoning.

In today's world, students are just learning for namesake purpose and earning a degree to land up in a job. Hardly they realize the beauty of their chosen Majors. Even people who choose the most coveted Computer Science Engineering, end up as a Consultant in some financial firm. Therefore, to pull students to do research work, they need to realize the various advantages and happiness involved in performing a research and inventing a new concept. This will be feasible, only if the students have a good basic background of the working of already established facts or ideas. In good olden days, scientists did not enroll themselves in a Ph.D program to invent a new device. Instead, they found new concepts accidentally, when they were deeply indulged in performing their scientific experiments. Only if the theory(facts) are backed up with lab work(illustration of facts), will a student get interested in thinking out of the box and opting for research.

Above all, some may quote that understanding the ideas, trends and concepts behind each and every fact can take a lot of time. On the other hand, this time spent in understanding does not go in vain. They strengthen the foundation and pave way for a bright future. Facts which are learned with complete understanding through live experiment results, stay in one's mind forever. Hence they foster creativity and innovation in young minds. Thus, the claim of time being wasted does not hold good.

Therefore, educators must base their evaluation of students' learning on the understanding of facts for the following reasons: avoiding rote memorization and encouraging in-depth understanding, getting interested knowing the real-life applications of the facts concerned, indulging in hard core research work for the betterment of society. If this form of teaching methodology is followed in all the countries, then there will be millions of Doctoral Candidates presenting their thesis every year!