Dibels: Classroom Analysis

I believe assessment is important and is the basis of planning for instruction, whether it is diagnostic prior to learning, formative during units or lessons, or summative to evaluate student learning. Rowan’s quote in Every Teacher’s Guide to Assessment, "After all, in the end, the problem is less the idea of testing itself, but how we design them, apply, them, and make use of their data." definitely has an impact on my assessment practices. I feel it is necessary to make sure the student acquires all aspects of the learning. Assessment should be used to bring a value for students. Within my instruction, I implement daily formative assessments which may include turn and share, quick writes, graphic organizers, online discussion responses, KahootIt, and other forms. Designing the appropriate formative assessment to match the lesson is important to assess how the learning is taught and whether the students are showing progress. In addition, I have worked on building blocks of formative assessments in checklist style leading up to the point of reviewing for a summative test. Each of these are checked off as completed and instant feedback is given. Feedback from an assessment is essential to student learning and how a teacher will ensure the content is being acquired.

Formative assessment is a more formal type of assessing where the focus is on monitoring pupils response to the lesson and any progress made.

Assessment is an imperative part of the learning process. According to Stiggins and Chappuis (2012), “Assessment is, in part, the process of gathering evidence of student learning to inform instructional decisions. This process can be done well or poorly.” To learn more about assessment I sat down for a one on one interview with Jim Libretti. Coach Libretti is the head coach of the freshman football team at Paradise Valley High School. Also, he is a math teacher.

Knowing when to use each is imperative to the success of students. It is the teacher's job to decide when to use each of the types and subtypes of assessments. Through the research presented in this literature it has been found that formative assessment is a more helpful form of guiding instruction. Summative assessment is used to see what students know about a particular topic at a particular time, such as a cumulative exam. Students and teachers alike feel the pressure that high stakes testing can bring. Teachers make all the difference when it comes to testing. So, in order for teachers to have classrooms where testing is used efficiently they must work diligently to make sure their assessments are balanced and carefully

I believe that assessments are used to guide instruction in the classroom and also to improve student achievement. Teachers can use assessments to determine how much prior knowledge students have and how much time they need to spend on each subject matter. Conderman and Hedin (2012) suggested, always waiting till the end of instruction to assess tends to allow the teacher to miss out on reflecting on the effectiveness of their instructional strategies (Conderman, 2012). Therefore, it is beneficial for teachers to assess students throughout their lessons, at various times, in order to get an adequate representation of their students’ knowledge. This approach also allows teachers to make revisions to their instructional practices that will enhance student achievements. However, while I strongly agree with this aspect; I also think there can be other ways to guide instruction without having to formally assess students.

Assessments are used to facilitate learning through collecting data. A complete assessment involves several elements. It attempts to answer the question of why a student is not learning or not producing in the instructional environment. Assessment also attempts to determine levels of functioning in areas that may be impacting student’s performance negatively. The purpose of the assessments is to provide all parties involved with the information necessary for individualized instruction (Assessment –for Parents, 1999). The most common reasons are referral, screening, identification, instructional planning, and student progress.

There are many types of ways teachers can assess students ' knowledge. A formative assessment is one of these types. A formative assessment takes place either during the lesson or before, as a pretest. Formative assessments are used to see where students ' learning is at along the way. A benefit of formative testing is that teachers can see what they should improve on in their lessons to help students learn the content. A drawback is that formative assessments could be seen as "busy work" if they are not created with students learning in mind. Another type of assessment is a summative assessment. These assessments take place at the end of a lesson and cover a range of standards learned throughout a unit. An example of a summative

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.

Assessment is used to document learning and to plan our next steps. There is evidence of constructive, specific feedback that is linked to the lesson objectives. Teachers plan assessments to learn what students have knowledge of and what they need to practice on. Assessment use in the classroom allows both the students and teachers to see if goals of education are being met. Assessments affect a variety of things such as the grades students have, instructional needs, and placement in classes. Assessments can reveal more than just if a student knows the material or not, assessments can also reveal a students strengths and weaknesses. The student may be able to answer all questions correctly on a multiple choice test, but then fails an essay questions because they are unable to explain themselves due to the lack of knowledge of the content. Assessments are a great way to receive data on the student’s knowledge, but making sure the teacher is using the right and appropriate assessment can be a major factor.

I believe that assessments are essential to a classroom. It is also an ongoing process. Assessments are important for many reasons. It can be used to gather information that will help make better decisions about individual students in a classroom. It determines whether the goals or objectives have been met. It inspires me as the teacher to ask questions like “Am I teaching what I think I am teaching?" and "Are my students learning what they are supposed to be learning?" Assessments lead teachers to make decisions about the purpose of the content that is being assessed.

The term assessment is a function that gathers accurate information needed to make wise instructional decisions and to reach fair judgments about student learning. The term assessment usually refers to full range of information gathered and synthesized by teachers about their students and their classrooms. The effective use of new assessment tactics requires new expectations about instruction, learning, and assessment; however, in order to make sure that all three modules are balanced and effective, educators need to answer the question, “What do we want students to learn?”

Assessment is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “The act of making a judgment about something.” In a school environment, the judgment, of course, is the learning of our students. Are they learning the material? What do they currently understand? Are they meeting the standard? Have the learning objectives been met? Do they understand what has been taught thus far? Students are constantly being assessed. They are assessed prior to a learning activity in order to provide a basis for planning. They are informally assessed throughout the learning process for the purpose of adjusting the lesson. They are formally assessed at the end of a lesson to ensure that the necessary objectives have been learned. They are assessed at points throughout the school year to gauge if they are each on the same level as their peers and in overall knowledge, as well as using these assessments to provide the tools to measure the effectiveness of the school, curriculum, and/or teacher. Assessment is indeed valuable for a number of reasons and from a number of vantage points.

Formative assessment focuses on conducting how the student learns over time. Teachers test based on understanding and comprehending of the lesson such as; chapter tests or small quizzes. My teacher uses review packets, chapter tests, bonus homework sheets, individual whiteboard sheets, and whole-class discussions. For example; if a child is learning about multiplication and has to apply the concept to a word problem, but has no concept in combing the lesson to solve the problem. This informs the teacher that the child doesn’t understand the lesson or needs to go back to change how it could be taught differently. These assessments show my teacher whether the child understand the concept they are learning or whether the teacher needs to change her teaching as a whole. Summative assessment has a different goal towards the students’ learning at the end of a unit by comparing it against some benchmark score. This assessment focuses on the curriculum aspect on assessing the whole picture meaning the unit at the end of the lesson. My practicum teacher works on providing checklists, checking problems before moving on to the next problem, using hand signals, and writing in their math journals. Students enjoy using hand signals to answer the problem and use their individual white boards to personally solve the problem. There are a few benefits of using hand signals in the classroom. Incorporating these signals provide teachers a quick visual check on whether the students understand how to solve a problem and comprehend the problem. For example; using thumbs-up, hands on your head, or finger on your nose if agree or disagree to a solution. Allowing students to use individual white

Assessment is a part of education. From informal to formal assessment, teachers and school determine different aspects of assessment to show growth, area of concern, comparison and effectiveness of teachers.

The main aim of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing information that will be useful for instructors to improve their teaching, and also or students to enhance their