The thinking doesn't stop

Have been a tad tardy in keeping up with blogging as I find it goes against the way I think, learn and compose my thoughts. It is not a tool for learning that I find good, similar to keeping a diary or reflective journal - start off OK but would much rather sit and debate, discuss. This way means that I am writing my thoughts to myself - why??? Feel better having got that out of the way.
The more I think about the literature that I have read on assessment, the more I think that we need to examine how students are assessed and I think that in many instancies they are definitely as a measure, a mark, grade, call it what you will, to be able to enter such data into a spreadsheet to provide proof of 'learning'. Or is it that we lecturers can be seen to have achieved what we are required to do - evidence of 'learning' that has been regurgitated on cue. The cinicism is leaking through. There is a need for the MCQs that students sit, to test some understanding and recall, but what of the short answer assessments. I suggest that no student can write, coherently, what they are being asked to do, under pressure, yet this is a format that is still favoured by many. Easy to mark, model answer on tap???
All students must, in the current climate of education, expose themselves to doing assessments on a regular basis, but one has to question what is actually gained. The feedback that (sometimes) accompanies their return often is approx 4 weeks after the event of sitting the assignment and the moment of learning is oft past for that course/paper. What learning is gained by the student reading the feedback - how do the teachers know? So many questions and thbe more I read more arise. Ultimately, in many cases, the grade is seen as evidence of learning. as stated by Nesbit and Burton (2006) there is little relationship between what students think of their mark, and feedback, and the learning that has reall happened. If the value and importance of lifelong learning is to be honestly acknowledged this is an area that has to be addressed and researched. Sleep time