Teaching Students With Quality Assessments

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

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).

The service user has various assessments of need undertaken, this allows practioners to create plans and to regularly review the plans put in place for children and young people. Watson and West (2006), argue that good social work practice is good quality assessment, assessments inform evaluations and judgements. Assessment is about critically analysing information from a range of sources to determine need, eligibility and risk. Assessments involve a collaborative process; ensuring people participate and take as much control as possible in identifying their own needs. From the social work point of view, all professional judgments should be balanced and substantiated. Moreover, a perspective that sees the 'whole system' and the interconnected

Describe and explain the ways in which assessment practice has the potential to impact students’ learning:

During one of our professional development days in the week before school started, we spent an entire day reviewing the curriculum mapping process and began identifying the most essential standards and learning outcomes for students. One subtle indicator was that only two teachers demonstrated understanding about the importance of using assessment results to plan their first two weeks of lessons. One suggested that they would begin with a writing prompt to determine where students were in their narrative writing, and the other expressed the urgency to administer the reading assessment so that she could put her students in reading groups. Eighty percent of our staff were either longing for the

As Stephanie Ingster outlines (lecture 2, slide 37), explains that teachers need to focus on assessment for learning as students are able to receive feedback and reflect during the unit rather that at the end of teaching. In this way, teachers and students are able to gain a better sense of direction for motivation and improvement in ongoing teaching and

Earl, L. M. (2013). Assessment as Learning: Using Classroom Assessment to Maximize Student Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Guideline 3 stands out to me personally due to the experience I had in my placement last semester. Teaching students to acquire the skills and knowledge to be better in their academic endeavor definitely requires considerable time of instructional planning; including what types of assessment techniques to use in measuring the students' performances on how much and how well they are learning the material being taught.

The next assignment I would like to showcase is my performance and portfolio assessments from Using Assessment Data to Drive Instructional Decisions. The performance assessment focused on a Pizza Party assignment. Students were required to add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals using pictorial models and algorithms in order to calculate the cost the cost of pizza and drinks at each pizza parlor. They used their calculations to determine which restaurant had the best price. Students were scored on a performance rubric regarding their ability to add and subtract rationals, represent and solve for products of decimals, and represent and solve for quotients of decimals. My portfolio assessment covered the same skills; however, students were required to submit six artifacts they completed over the course of the year. All of the assignments involved decimal computation. Students were scored on a rubric based on their demonstration of mathematical concepts and reasoning, errors, terminology, organization, peer assessment, and reflection.

Garfield, (1994) aligns herself to this notion of assessment. She argues that if the collected information by assessment is consistent with learning objectives and is used appropriately to inform instruction, it can enhance students‘ learning as well as document it furthermore, she adds that assessment, rather than being an activity separate from instruction, is now being viewed as an integral part of teaching and learning and not just the climax of instruction.

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.

Throughout this course I have gained many insights about designing effective curriculum, instruction and assessment. Though the use of our various resources, discussions, and assignments I have grown as an educator and will take many things from this course to implement into my classroom. The three most important aspects I am taking away from this course are the use of real world performance tasks, unpacking goals to find specific and measurable objectives, and the importance of differentiation geared towards the individual classroom.

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

It is said that effective teacher will use both assessment and evaluation regularly to improve student learning and to guide instruction. Indeed, both have pivotal roles in the teaching-learning process yet, somehow they do differ in many ways. Assessment and evaluation measure whether or not learning and/or learning objectives are being met. One could look at assessment and evaluation as the journey (assessment) versus the snapshot (evaluation). (Sue Watson, 2009) Assessment requires the gathering of evidence of student performance over a period of time to measure learning and understanding. Evidence of learning could take the form of dialogue, journals, written work, portfolios, and tests along with many other learning