Essay on Authentic Assessment in Instructional Leadership

I am a strong believer that one test defines a students. Therefore, variety is key when assessing students. When using formative assessment I use student reflections, journal entries, exit cards in addition to non verbal communication such as thumbs up or down. I also make anadotal notes on students to help assess the overall learning journey of the student. When using summative assessments, I use district assessments, state assessments, portfolios, short answer, multiple choice, and student based projects. In all forms of assessments, students are provided the appropriate accommodations. My learning goal for assessing students is to have a valid assessment that demonstrate the student’s understanding of the specific skill. It is crucial that I understand the purpose of the assessments and the content that is being taught, therefore, I often start instruction with the assessment piece in

Written assessment can be used to give a differentiation of questions to the learner and can be used to judge knowledge at a given level. It also provides a good paper trail. Problems could arise if the learner did not have good reading skills or was dyslexic, evidence could be lost.

2) Design training: the assessor must plan and design an assessment programme which meets the needs of the learner and the requirements of the course.

Assessments should contribute to a student’s education and learning by including students in the learning process educators are able to assist and extend students learning (SCSA, 2014).

Assessment provides information to support the planning of effective learning experiences. By assessing my students I will understand better what they know and can do, so I can further extend their learning where they are already accomplished or I can support the areas which need work. Assessment is also useful as a diagnostic tool (McConney 2015 pp1) when it comes to learning problems and also giftedness in students, so that they can then be better provided for.

Assessment needs to be an ongoing, integral part of the teaching and learning cycle. It must allow teachers and students themselves to monitor learning. From the teacher

Ch. 2 – Who are the various users of assessment and its results? What specific instructional decisions can be made based on assessment results? Why must we build balanced assessment systems to support the instructional programs we offer students? This chapter nails down the purpose of assessing, which is gathering information to inform teachers of students of their instruction and learning, respectively. In this way, assessment is individualized to each student and classroom, and because all students/classes are different, it should inform the teachers of what is working or not working in the classroom, which should then influence some sort of change to instruction. This chapter also talks about the different levels of assessment – from the individuals

Assessment as learning for students will occur mainly in their interactions with other students. As students listen to what their peers are saying, they will learn new ideas. This engagement and participation will be good learning experiences that the students have throughout this unit. Students can use personal knowledge to construct meaning and monitor what they don’t understand something. Student’s routines reflect their work and I can make judgments about what they have already read. Student will use rubric to assess their journal. The student

Assessments are vital to the educational process. They provide feedback about what the students know and what they may need to learn in order to obtain the content within a given curriculum. It provides teachers with a glimpse into the student’s readiness on a particular topic or subject. One of the six key principles of having an effective differentiated classroom is having a formative assessment that informs teachers on the effectiveness of their teaching. It also provides teachers with the readiness levels of their students and shows them exactly where the students’ readiness, interests, and learning profile needs really are (Tomlinson, 2014).

From my school days I have bitter memories of going through various tests to show my daily learning in every mid and end of term test. These tests were mainly recall-based testing which made me feel that my memory was tested rather than my understanding. Furthermore the scores were very important to each student. Every student’s scores were at the entrance of the classroom, which meant that all of the students could see everyone else’s score. On the contrary I never got feedback to support our learning further. Therefore, I was not fully on board with the idea of using assessment as the foundation of learning and teaching the curriculum. Seeing ‘Assessment is for Learning’ [AifL] used in practice has shifted my views on assessments, as it was

Assessment is so important for education because it is, “…crucial for helping people learn. Assessment should mirror good instruction; happen continuously as part of instruction; and provide information about the levels

Analysis the peer assignment closely and make sure all instruction were followed and if any questions were include, answered in a complete thorough way. Studies have shown that unless your graded on the assessment, students tend to not assess. When assessments are graded the task gets done. For most students most reviews had been useful, especially reviews being anonymous, which allowed some of the assessors to be “ruthless”. Text feedback was valued more than marks (Brown, Sambell and McDowell,

Assessments are integral parts of instruction, they determine whether classroom goals have been achieved, and help teachers know what areas they should focus on and maybe reteach. They are great tools for developing lesson plans and answer questions such as; “do my students possess full understanding of the material?” There are many ways of assessing students’ learning, one of which I have personal experience with are on-the-spot assessments.

Assessments provide learners opportunities to develop mastery of their ideas, skills and competencies, whilst educators use assessment tasks as both teaching and learning tools (Spiller, 2009:6 & 7).

Informal assessment allows students to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways which can benefit all students. It can include group or individual projects, presentations, essays, experiments, or demonstrations. Each of these can allow for “knowledge that transfers from one situation to another [which] is based on students’ abilities to understand central principles, see connections and make distinctions, and be strategic in attacking problems and analyzing information” (Darling-Hammond, p. 285). A variety of assessment methods allow for this to happen and for students to use their personal strengths to demonstrate understanding of the information. “Research into students’ preferences for alternative assessments shows that the assessments that have been positively evaluated by students were more authentic and thus made learning more realistic and powerful” (as cited in Brown, Irving, Peterson, and Hirschfeld, 2009, p. 99). Students should be able to think creatively and take hold of their own education and learning because they must ideally be prepared for a rapidly changing society where they must be able to adapt and formulate their own solutions. Teachers are able to provide feedback to the children so they know what was done effectively and what needs to be modified. Rather than teachers pressuring students to show understanding through a single examination, they will have opportunities to confidently demonstrate knowledge with less