Frequent Formative Assessments

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.

The term ‘formative assessment’ is used to describe the activities and processes used by teachers and learners to gather information that informs future teaching and learning. Assessment becomes formative if the information gathered is used as feedback to adapt and modify teaching and learning (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.2). There are a variety of different methods and techniques that can be used by teachers and learners that can contribute to enhancing learner progress. These include

The use of formative assessment practices with ELL students are observational checklists, peer assessment, and performance skills. By having students writing a lesson plan, the roles between the teacher and the students will be changed. This is a formative assessment that engages students in distinctive ways. Students are focused on goals and objectives. It gives them confidence. They are creating a lesson. For ELLs, this is a tremendous accomplishment when done correctly, as well as when done in a collaborative classroom environment. It promotes constructive feedback. Students play an active role in formative assessment. They not only perform the task given, providing evidence of their current learning, but they are also involved in self-assessment (and sometimes peer assessment); therefore, developing and enhancing autonomy.

During web based instructional design (WBID) and development, formative evaluation will occur from school experts including the schools technology manager, assistant principal of curriculum, and the business department chair. They will review the materials presented in the WBI (web based instruction) elements for design, content, graphics, structure, message, and technical specifications. Formative of the final WBI prototype will take place as a small group of students (one section) field test the WBI over a term. Test and assignment scores, student participation, surveys, and discussions with students will assist with determining the relative successes and failures of the program as well as areas that need improvement.

i. Reflection: This section will include a brief reflection on how assessment will help inform you of your students’ achievement of the learning objective, as well as how it will inform your future

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

Writing Prompt. This two-day lesson assessment determined whether or not students met the lesson’s objective. We chose this assessment because it provides qualitative data and incorporates the writing standard into our lesson. Also, the writing prompt is an open-ended assessment tool that does not limit the students’ choices when answering the prompt. If we gave them a multiple choice form of assessment, then the students only have 4 options to choose from that may not represent their thoughts entirely. Plus, students could select the correct answer through process of elimination, which would not represent the full picture of their knowledge and understandings. The writing prompt required the students to individually explain to an alien what its responsibilities are now that it is a member of the local community. Attached to the writing prompt was a writing rubric that would guide students to write a complete answer (See Appendix A). Since their language arts and reading teacher uses this writing rubric for her assignments, the student are familiar with it and understand how to write a complete answer. We had the students complete it individually so we could see each students’ voice and thoughts and eliminate the possibility of their answer being influenced by their peers’ opinions. Since we understand that the “the results of assessment are used to inform the planning and implementing of experiences and to evaluate and improve teachers’ and the program’s effectiveness”

Assessments are used to track a student’s progress while examining how much they have learned. In the English Teacher’s Companion, it discusses that all the work a student does throughout the year becomes a means of assessing what they have learned (285). In my classroom, it is crucial to examine the process of my students learning throughout the year without basing their entire grade on one final exam. As mentioned in the text, a few of the strategies that I imagine using are to give students as much information as possible. The author states “Students should understand the requirements, the standards, and the criteria” (286). With that being said,

The first article that I viewed was on Edutopia and it was titled Why Formative Assessments Matter. This article was a very helpful in that it was a review of what formative assessments are, why they are used, and when and how you use them. The middle part, why they are used, it reinforces that they are used for, to inform, not to punish. This is important to remember as we are assessing and planning instruction for students each day. Learning and showing what you have learned should never feel like a punishment. At the end of the article, in the last section, there were suggestions on ways to formatively assess students in a way that would not feel as though they are being punished. Instead, they are enjoying showing what they have learned. The last tip in this article was to watch, look, and listen. It is important to remember that to formatively assess students you must constantly

The ability to read allows for education, enjoyment, imagination, and understanding. With literacy you can go anywhere: the correct path on the highway, a made up kingdom, or the center of an atom. Reading is not in jeopardy, but rather will remain an essential part of our lives for the next several decades, if not centuries. Reading has proved to be a durable form of entertainment for centuries, however there will likely be some adjustments to how we approach the activity in the near future.

Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting further student learning and enabling improved student learning through purposeful interaction and providing meaningful feedback. Formative assessment is specifically intended to generate feedback and feed forward on performance to improve, accelerate and enable learning (Sadler, 1998). Formative assessment can and should occur throughout a daily class, through implementation of learning and teaching strategies that lead to both oral and written feedback. The Formative assessment approach is equitable and reliable, producing some significant indicator of student developed understanding that links directly to the syllabus outcomes. This then allows the teacher or other students to respond by trying to

In these last few class sessions, we created a nontraditional formative assessment. With this, I learned that the simpler the activity instructions are, the better. This way, if there is a sub in your classroom, the they can easily read and understand the activity to give to the students. Other things to include in the teacher instructions, includes groups members, materials, and how much time should be spent on this activity. If your students are 2nd grade or older, there should be easy to read and understand instructions for the students. If your students are younger than 2nd grade, then there should be student instructions within the teacher instructions for the teacher or sub to read to the class. Either way, student instructions should

Recently, whenever I hear current teachers discussing about assessing students, ‘Formative Assessment’ is sure to be highlighted. Nowadays this method (formative assessment) is becoming popular among schools and is being applied widely in schools including my own school. Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) identified in the few past decades, formative assessment has turned out to be the main goal for teachers and educational systems. On the foundation of Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) findings and from my experience in the field of teaching, I found out nowadays teachers and school stakeholders strongly feel that formative assessment is the best method to assess in order to enhance students’ learning. For these evident reasons, I am interested in finding

In this section, I will analyze the meaning attached to the feedback provided in the final summative evaluation in a question by question format.

Evaluating a piece of writing using traits that are already set and outline in rubrics helps us have a set of descriptions and levels of performance that will be the same for all students. At the same time by having a rubric you will know what to “look for” in the student writing. The rubric can be specific to an area of concern such as organization, or can have different areas that the student needs to be able to accomplish. Understanding rubrics can help get the most out of students’ thoughts and ideas through the means of formative and summative assessments.