Learning Objective Assessment

Evidence needs to be authentic and actually related to the performance of the learner being assessed and not that of another learner instead.

Assessment, both formative and summative, plays a significant part in the learning experience as it determines progression and enables learners to demonstrate that they have achieved their desired learning outcomes.

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.

Comprehensive assessments provide evidence of student learning. There are three instrumental ways to adapt instruction to improve student learning; challenging and meaningful assessment, feedback and motivation (Vega, 2014). First, assessments should be challenging and

Improved Assessment Literacy: Unlike the current education system that treats assessment more separated from teaching, the core teaching standards recognize that teachers need to have greater knowledge and skill on how to develop a number of assessments, how to balance use of formative and summative assessment as

Assessment and data driven instruction are a vital part of teaching. Assessments are used frequently to guide the proceeding lessons. I am interested in learning more about the different types of assessments and the appropriate uses of each. I think it is critical as a future teacher to have many resources to back up my techniques, especially with the growing interest in data and tracking students’ progress. Gathering information about assessments will allow me to broaden my own techniques and strategies that I use in the classroom, more specifically the ways in which I grade and provide feedback on assessments so that students can use that feedback in a positive way. In my past experiences I have noticed my cooperating teachers providing grades on all assessments with no feedback because they want the students to correct their own mistakes. This may work on summative assessments but I think that there needs to be comments on formative assessments so that students know how to correct their mistakes for the end of the unit tests.

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).

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

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

After observing a 7th grade classroom, I have seen our class objectives being used in the classroom. I saw how a teacher uses assessment to check her students understanding and adjust instruction to meet the needs of the students. I saw different forms of assessment of formative assessment. I saw observations, the use of questioning, worksheets, and homework. The teacher reviewed material and retaught material that students had trouble understanding.

In your units, please include a minimum of two formative assessments and one summative assessment. The formative assessments should identify the critical content knowledge and skills, and suggest a formative assessment technique necessary to monitor student comprehension. This is critically important for first and second year teachers. If first and second year teachers are not provided the key “stop light” moments, they are likely to breeze by critical precursory knowledge and skills, and then be disappointed when students do not perform well on summative assessments. The summative assessment should be designed to produce a data point (i.e. grade) that aligns with standards and standardized assessments, and may be used by a data team as part of a Response to Intervention process. The summative assessment should be common; the expectation is that all teachers instructing the course administer the common summative assessment, calibrate assessment practices, meet in PLC groups to review/discuss student work, and identify students for tier 1 and tier 2

For the common assessment I chose, the students were reviewing all of the topics they learned over the past week. The topics included: fractions, elapsed time, and multiplication and division. Some of the language on the summative assessment included: How many whole numbers are in the fraction and plot 5/4 on a number line. In order to do the review, students had to read the worksheet, so they had to use their literacy skills. There was content development because it was a review of what they students had learn as a result from being in my small group for that week.

This tool provides techniques for assessing student learning in a way that deepens their understanding, enables their application of knowledge, and strengthens their ability to transfer their knowledge for use in new settings.

Data drives my classroom instruction. I have learned over the years that assessments comes in various forms. When I began teaching, I thought assessments meant test, right or wrong, passing or failing, pre and post. I never consider assessing students throughout the lessons, using rubrics, creating portfolios in addition to formative and summative assessments. Once I learned to assess students continuously, my teaching changed drastically. I was able to make adjustments to student’s learning immediately and mastery was reached. To begin, reliability and validity in teacher-constructed assessments is crucial in assessing student achievement. Local and state test must be reliable and valid in order to effectively measure student achievement. One way to ensure if assessments are reliable and valid is a Table of Specification. The table of specification guides my decisions based on how many days were spent teaching certain objectives which are ultimately what is assessed. According to the Table of Specification, my instruction should align in a balanced assessment with six lower level and six higher level questions. Three of my higher level questions stem from one objective in which will be included into each daily lesson making this my most heavily weighted objective. Students need a balance in instruction as well as assessments. “Linking classroom assessments to tables of specifications also guarantees consistency and thoroughness” (Guskey, 2005, p. 38). In the end, when

Assessment is a vital part of education and can be very influential in regards to the success of a student as well as the teacher. In order for successful learning to take place, a student must know their strengths, where they need to improve and how to move forward or their next step. This is accomplished through informative and descriptive feedback; feedback must have the goal of enhancing students’ metacognition, curricular comprehension and understanding how they learn best and how to be effective. I have learned many things about assessment including how integral assessment is to instruction because it determines if the goals of education are being met. I never realized how much assessment affects decisions about grades, instructional needs and curriculum. I also learned how important it is to have students involved in their own learning and assessment. It allows students to take charge to understand their own learning style, process and see how they are doing and how they can improve; it additionally can give students an idea of what they would like to learn next or more of.