Introduction
1.1 Assessment – Purpose and value
Assessments take on many forms, but all have one distinctive purpose, to empower a teacher with a resource that gathers information about students that will later be used for evaluating and analysing students’ knowledge and understanding, guiding teachers on what to report about a student’s achievement to the relevant stakeholders. Krause, Bochner, Duchesne and McMaugh (2010) describes assessment as “The gathering and analysing of information about a student’s achievement”. Assessing and reporting the achievement of a student is fundamental in the process of creating lifelong learners. Brady and Kennedy (2010) define “the purpose of assessment is a method used to make a diagnoses of students learning and progress. Principle one of the School Curriculum and Standards Authority states “Assessment should be an integral part of teaching and learning” (2013). Teachers have a responsibility to their students to ensure they are providing every
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Krause et al. (2010) describes performance assessments as a way to assess complex tasks such as dance, drama, music, technology and design. Dynamic assessments are an interactive form of assessment, used by teachers to help identify a student’s learning potential and suspected learning difficulties. Dynamic assessments allow teachers to conference and intervene as needed with students, adjusting learning tasks by refocusing and redirecting and revising as necessary (Marsh, 2010). Marsh (2010) also labels formative assessment strategies as a way of raising standards of student’s achievements, this has been more noticeable in children with lower learning ability. Summative and Formative assessments have also been compared as being quantitative - students’ performance as measured by marks or positions on a scale vs qualitative - what students know and can do (Krause et al.,
Current educational policy and practice asserts that increased standardized student testing is the key to improving student learning and is the most appropriate means for holding individual schools and teachers accountable for student learning. Instead, it has become a tool solely for summarizing what students have learned and for ranking students and schools. The problem is standardized tests cannot provide the information about student achievement that teachers and students need day-to-day. Classroom assessment can provide this kind of information.
Assessment for learning informs and promotes the achievement of all pupils, as it encourages them to take responsibility for their own learning. It focuses on the learning process and how to improve a child’s academic progression, finding out where pupils are within a learning range, where they need to go and how best to get them there. Lots of different assessment for learning strategies can be used to help pupils in their learning, and these can be adopted by teachers to gain an understanding of what has been achieved and what steps should be taken next in order to progress learning forward.
This article presented interesting data on using dynamic assessment to diagnose bilingual children with language impairments. I leaned quite a few things from this article. One of the most important things I learned is that there is an overrepresentation of bilingual children in special education programs, specifically in elementary school. This is a problem that is likely a result of the standardized measures used to diagnose these children. I think that clinicians should be cautious when using standard measures, like the PLS-3, on bilingual children. This is important because we do not want to diagnose children with a language impairment simply because these measures are not appropriate for the bilingual population. Having learned this, I
Effective classroom teachers use a variety of assessment instruments on a daily basis to determine student progress. Assessing the students is the easy part and can be ongoing or at specific times during the year. After any assessment is given, it is vital for the teachers to analyze the results of the assessment. Finally, teachers much continually monitor student progress in order to ensure student success. The assessing, analyzing, and monitoring requires planning on the teacher’s part. If teachers fail to plan, they plan to fail; this is the result in many classrooms today because teachers access their students and then do not analyze the data in order to monitor and document students’ learning.
All assessments will be purposeful, and the goal of the assessment will be determined before the assessment is given. Assessment and evaluation will be ongoing throughout the year to provide reliable information. Assessments will also be authentic during the natural daily schedule. I will assess by creating portfolios, observing the children, and taking anecdotal notes. The assessments will allow me to measure students’ success and development. I will gather data from multiple sources to ensure that the data is reliable. I will maintain ethical behavior in all forms of assessment and evaluation. I will also reflect on my own teaching practices to better myself for my
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
Assessments are an important part of teaching. Assessments are a good way for teachers to monitor students’ learning and understanding. Knowing students’ level of understanding can help teachers improve students’ learning and guide their instructions. In the future, I plan to continue assessing students in multiple ways such as, asking questions, illustrations and writing to adjust my instruction. I also plan to encourage students to assess their own work so they are involved in their own learning as well as look for ways to “employ technology to support assessment
Assessment has been the greatest challenge in my development as a professional. My coursework as supported my growth in this area, especially in understanding the broad range of assessments used to support students’ growth and development. My courses have also supported my understanding of how ongoing observational assessment and standards-based measures can be used to inform instruction and support the cycle of observation, reflection and planning. Coursework
Assessment comes in many different forms and methods. This allows for variety and a true representation of students strengths and abilities. As the styles of assessment vary between oral, written, auditory, independent, group, and so on, so does the forms of assessments. Two distinctions between assessments are formative and informal. I believe there needs to be an equal balance of both of these to promote the fairest assessment of students’ ability. They are both different and so they both test many different things and can show different results. I would describe formative assessment as something where a student is being directly assessed and tested on knowledge of a topic. The teacher often has a plan, a direct reason for formative assessment. Formative assessments do not always have to be like this, “about guiding where instruction needs to go next. Although
The two main purposes of assessment discussed in this article are for helping learning and for summarizing learning. Assessment has always been a part of the education system and involves various tasks, tests and examinations for the development of the learner and the teacher. Often an assessment measures what has been learned, remembered, understood and applied (Sieborger & Macintosh, 1998). Assessment also provides a platform for evaluation and feedback to take place. The primary purpose of an assessment is not only to measure what the learners have learned but rather as an indication of where they can improve and achieve more. An assessment is also in place to motivate learners to improve.
Dynamic assessment integrates assessment and instruction into a seamless, unified activity aimed at promoting learner development through appropriate forms of mediation that are sensitive to the individual‘s (or in some cases a group‘s) current abilities. In essence, DA is a procedure for simultaneously assessing and promoting development that takes account of the individual‘s (or group‘s) zone of proximal development and his/her responsiveness to mediation.
Weeden, P., Winter, J. and Broadfoot, P. 2002. Assessment: What´s in it for schools? London: Routledge / Falmer.
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
Educational assessment is a valuable tool for observing and assessing the results obtained by the students, as well as for checking the efficiency of the teaching process and consequently the improvement of it when necessary.
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.