As I reflect on my past assessment process, I realized how much my assessments have changed over the years. In my early years, I used tests for informational recall as my assessments. I felt these were appropriate guidelines in which I needed to follow in order to substantiate a student’s grade. Every assignment or tests was given a point value and then based on the amount of points, a grade was given. Every student’s assessment was exactly the same, and the assessments did not contain any subjectivity. I felt confident in giving the grade based on a valid point system. However reflecting back, I see that I did not include any performance-based assessments or individual learning styles in my early assessment. I also did not take into consideration the individual needs of my students. My assessment approach was awful. I am embarrassed that I use to assess students in this manner. However, as I have grown professionally, I have become more eclectic in my assessments. I now incorporate a student-performance, along with test of the material presented, and a humanistic approach on how my students are impacted by the grades they receive. For instance, my Asperger student, Lukas, needs his assessments to contain fact-recall questions, and essay questions need to have step-by-step answers. He does not perform well if questions regarding interpretations of emotions or non-factual data of information are part of the assessment. Students who are high-risk for failure because of anxiety need a different type of assessment. These students are given a more performance-based hands-on assessment or verbal discussion option for their evaluation. My students have done power-points, self-evaluations and one-on-one discussions for a ... ... middle of paper ... ...ercent, I alter their assignments and meet with them prior to the final grading. In this way they focus on the task at hand instead of the final outcome. Too many students focus on getting it done and not taking the time to make it meaningful. I use assessments to assist me to identify and to develop their learning process. Assessment is not about the final grade, but the learning experience. I would rather have my students know how to look up information and apply knowledge than to memorize it and forget it ten minutes after the test. Learning is a life-long adventure and I want my students to know how to adjust and cope during their adventure. I want my students to have the skills for researching and finding the answer. It is not always that answer which demonstrates learning; it is in the process in which you find the answer that demonstrates learning.
The topic of assessment alone raises many debated discussions, among teachers, and to add Special Education students into the polemical dialogue intensifies the debate. As a result, there are several alternative methods in assessing Special Education students within the learning environment. Professionals have created specifically designated techniques in helping these and all students achieve academic success.
Moreover, I learned the act of administering an assessment of this nature in a one-on-one setting. As a future teacher, I will need to assess my students informally, formally, and quite frequently. This particular assessment was great practice. Something to consider is completing running records in a
This usually happens when I monitor my students during the testing session. I make sure that I am visible and mobile inside my classroom. I want my students to do well on tests and gain confidence that they understand the concepts being tested, but I want my students to be self-motivated and self-reliant and to not look to their partners for the answers.
This assessment is an example of a performance assessment that could be given to children in kindergarten or first grade. This paper will discuss what characteristics of the student assessment makes it reliable as well as what motivational factors are included that will encourage students to want to succeed.
Stiggins, R. J. (2006, November/December). Assessment for learning: A key to motivation and achievement. Edge, 2, 3-19.
When the students are participating, I will give them verbal confirmation. If their answer is not correct, I will say “not quite” and then I will pick another students to share. For direct observations, I will also give the students verbal feedback. If I see students doing something really well, I will verbally let them know. If a student is not quite grasping the task, I will help him or her accordingly. I will sit down with them and I will explain that I can see they are having a difficult time with the task, and then I will allow the student to explain their troubles. I will give them verbal confirmation that they have a better understanding of the task, after we have worked together. While I am looking at the students’ work, I will also allow them to evaluate their work and provide their own feedback. This will allow them to reflect and monitor their own learning. If I agree with what they said, I will explain that I agree with their feedback. If do not agree, I will explain what I am seeing and then I will help the student accordingly. For the collections of their materials, I will write the feedback on their work. If they did really well, I will let them know. If there is something they need to work on, I will state that on their
William, D., & Thompson, M. (2007). Integrating assessment with instruction: What will it take to
Looking back over the course of the semester, I feel that I learned many new and interesting uses for technology within the classroom – both for classrooms that have a lot of technology and for classrooms that are limited with technology. For the majority of the class, we utilized William Kists’ book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), which provided multiple modes of instruction that both utilized and/or created technology. One of the first things that I remember, and consequently that stuck with me through the course’s entirety, is that individuals must treat everything as a text. Even a garden is a text. The statement made me change the way that I traditionally viewed Language Arts both as a student and as a teacher, as I very narrowly saw literature and works of the like as texts only; however, by considering nearly anything as a text, one can analyze, study, and even expand his/her knowledge. Kist (2010) states that society is “experiencing a vast transformation of the way we “read” and “write,” and a broadening of the way we conceptualize “literacy” (p. 2). In order to begin to experience and learn with the modern classroom and technologically advanced students, individuals must begin to see new things as literature and analyze those things in a similar manner.
Assessments have always been a tool for teachers to assess mastery and for a long time it was just to provide a grade and enter it into the grade book or report card. Through resources in and out of the course, there has been a breath of new life into the research on how to use assessments. They take many forms and fall within the summative or formative assessment category. Sloan (2016) addresses how formative assessments has traditionally been used by teachers to modify instruction, but when we focus on a classroom that is learner-centered “it becomes assessment for learning as opposed to assessment of learning” (slide 4). The fact is, the students are the ones that should be and are the ones using the data we collect through assessments, since it is our way of providing feedback in order
Cohen et al. (2010) wrote that assessment can be a major contributor to raising standards in schools in terms of teaching, learning and student achievement. In addition, if assessment is properly handled with consistency, reliability, validity and rigour, it can have a possitive effect on learning and can improve students' own understanding of how can they learn more effectively and improve.
Regular use of formative assessment improves student learning as instruction can be adjusted based on students’ progress and teachers are able to modify instructions to cater to students’ individual needs (Black & Wiliam, 2010; Taylor-Cox, & Oberdorf, 2013). Various forms of informal and formal formative assessment methods are conducted as learning takes place, continuously through teacher observations, questioning through individual interactions, group discussions and open-ended tasks (McMillan, 2011). tests can tell us a lot about students and be used to inform and guide teaching, rather than simply to determine grades. Teachers can learn a lot from test results if they analyse the data generated to inform their teaching and learning programs (Perso, 2009). However, high stakes tests may result in students becoming stressed, leading to misreading questions, careless working and incomplete answers (Booker et al., 2010).
I always knew that assessments were valuable to teaching, but I never understood their true value. Now, I have a better understanding on how to use assessments in my classroom to provide students with developmentally appropriate practices that are geared more towards the specific student and their needs. For instance, if I assessed a student using a task performance checklist and noticed that he had already accomplished a task, it would not be beneficial to have him keep doing the same thing that he already knows over and over. Instead, since the assessment
In spite of the importance of assessment in education, few teachers receive proper training on how to design or analyze assessments. Due to this, when teachers are not provided with suitable assessments from their textbooks or instructional resources, teachers construct their own in an unsystematic manner. They create questions and essay prompts comparable to the ones that their teachers used, and they treat them as evaluations to administer when instructional activities are completed predominantly for allocating students' grades. In order to use assessments to improve instruction and student learning, teachers need to change their approach to assessments by making sure that they create sound assessments. To ensure that their assessments are sound they need include five basic indicators that can be used as steps to follow when creating assessments. The first of these indicators and the first step a teacher must take when creating a sound assessme...
Overall my experience of being in Lingleville ISD was a great experience that allowed me to learn a lot not only about the students in the classroom, but also helped me learn a lot about myself. Going in to this classroom I expected to only learn things about classroom management and maybe a few strategies. After spending a few days in this room I learned many other things. I did learn about classroom management but I also learned about content, strategies, organization, lesson planning, and inclusion adaptations. I learned that an inclusion special education student can really thrive being in a mainstream classroom, not only academically but also socially. It was a wonderful learning opportunity to get to be a part of that. My mentor teacher
Through assessment students and teachers are able to determine the level of mastery a student has achieved with standards taught. Both formative and summative assessment should be purposeful and targeted to gain the most accurate data to drive further instruction (Ainsworth, 2010). While this syllabus does a good job of identifying the need for both formal and informal assessments, the way in which this is communicated does not provide enough detail for understanding. Simply listing assessment types does not give any insight into how these assessments fit in the learning process of this course. While some of the assessments mentioned could be common assessments chosen by the school or district to gain insight into the effectiveness of instruction, the inclusion of authentic assessments is most beneficial to students and demonstrates learning in a context closer to that of a work environment (Rovai, 2004). Unfortunately, this particular course, according to this syllabus, relies heavily on quizzes and traditional tests and essays to form the bulk of assessment opportunities. While other activities, such as formative assessments, journaling and discussions are mentioned as possible avenues for scoring, they are given a very low percentage of the overall grade. This shows that they are not valued for their ability to show progression and mastery. If this is indeed the case, this puts the students as a