Reflective Assessment Essay

In the world of education, assessments play an integral role in student learning. To get the most out of assessments, they must be aligned with the standards, accurately measure what students know, as well as promote student learning (McTighe and O’Connor, 2005). In order to do this, it is important to include students in the assessment planning process. This should begin at the beginning of a unit with the pre-assessment and should be carried throughout the formative and summative assessments. Dr. Anne Davies believes that “when students are involved in the assessment process, they are more engaged and motivated, and they learn more” (Davies, 2007, p. 31). In my interdisciplinary unit, I attempt to include students in every stage of the assessments

Allowing students to be self-directed learners helps feed-forward learning. Costa and Kallick (2007) believe self directed learners are “self managing, self monitoring and self- modifying”. In order to help students become self-directed learners, assessments must give students the opportunity to be active participants in their learning. My second formative assessment will be a short answer paragraph response question that allows students to drive their learning. This assessment will require students to answer writing prompt by using persuasive techniques and then reflect on their work. Reflecting on their thinking, their work and the skills that they learned helps students to become self-directed learners. The writing prompt will ask students to persuade an audience on the benefits or detriments of voting for a particular candidate. Before completing this assessment students will view the persuasive rubric outlined by the state of Texas. The expectation for how persuasive writing should be done will be set at this time. Once students have completed the short answer response, they will be asked to assess both their work and the work of a classmate using the same originally viewed rubric. Students will write four notes in the margin. Two of these notes will identify skills done well. The other two notes will identify skills that need to be improved. Both comments will be based on the descriptors in the rubric and will help student to set learning goals for themselves. Once students have reviewed classmates work, they will review their own and develop a plan to improve on their identified