R1972 And R2012 Report

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

Before any actual classroom teaching can take place, initial and diagnostic assessments must be carried out. These are paramount in agreeing individual learning goals, and planning the progression of the learner with the teacher.

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.

An initial or diagnostic assessment establishes the starting point and ascertains the student’s previous skills and knowledge. This enables the student to see how much he/she achieves during the course, it also fosters a more reflective approach to learning and enables the teacher to effectively plan the individual student’s needs. The teacher can then review the students’ progress and achievements, which improves the quality of teaching

The initial and diagnostic assessments are closely linked; all information gathered from these assessments are put together to help the learner and the teacher build a clear picture of the individual. This information will then be used to agree goals and actions, personalise learning, develop an ILP, tailor session plans to meet the individual learners needs and use teaching methods to cater for all learning styles.

Assessment is carried out through formative (checks throughout the course), ipsative (to test against previous marks), and/ or summative (at end of course) activities to help the learner see their development whilst allowing the Assessor to give valuable feedback when appropriate. It’s purpose is to measure the learners understanding of the subject against the anticipated outcomes set by the criteria.

Assessments are the process of evaluating an individual’s learning. They involve generating and collecting evidence of a learner’s attainment of knowledge and skills and judging that evidence against defined standards. Formative Assessments (quizzes and practical tests) are used to

Assessment is defined as any practice or task that is used to produce information about student learning, and is categorized as either formative or summative (Wallace & White, 2014). There is a distinct difference between the various types of assessments, specifically formative and summative. Formative assessments are informal quizzes that are used to guide instruction

There are characteristic differences between the two uses of assessment: • Summative comes at the end of learning episodes, whereas formative is built in to the learning process; • Summative aims to assess knowledge and understanding at a given point in time, whereas formative aims to develop it; • Summative is static and one-way (usually the teacher or examiner judges the pupil), whereas formative is on-going and dynamic (feedback can be given both to the pupil and the teacher); • Summative follows a set of pre-defined questions, whereas formative follows the flow of spontaneous dialogue and interaction, where one action builds on (is contingent upon) an earlier one. The term “assessment for learning” is often used interchangeably with “formative assessment”. In 1999, the Assessment Reform Group defined assessment for learning as “the process of seeking and interpreting

Initial and diagnostic assessment can often assist the teacher in deciding on the most appropriate teaching method to use in order to meet the needs of the individual learner. An initial assessment could indicate that a learner requires additional support for a number of reasons.

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

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

“A formative assessment is a planned process in which assessment-elicited evidence of students’ status is used by teachers to adjust their ongoing instructional procedures or by students to adjust their current learning tactics.” (Popham, 2017) A teacher focuses on their students by evaluating their learning to be able to give the students a framework for a grade on a specific subject. This evaluation, or assessment, helps a teacher come to a result on if the student has mastered a specific skill or subject concept. There are two types of assessments, the summative assessments are conducted after a unit or certain time period to determine how much learning has taken place and what progress the students have achieved. Formative assessment is intended to modify teaching and learning in order to find the best strategy or alternative strategies to help students become better learners and to help teachers improve their instruction for sure student success. Though it is important to use the assessments for grades and deciding where that student is at educationally, teachers really need to remind themselves and focus on using the formative assessment for learning.

Assessment can become part of the learning activity which can be modified to monitor student progress.” (“Assessment, Articulation, and Accountability”, 1999)