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the importance of educational assessments
the importance of educational assessments
the importance of educational assessments
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As teachers, we have to monitor the progress our students make each day, week, quarter and year. Classroom assessments are one of the most crucial educational tools for teachers. When assessments are properly developed and interpreted, they can help teachers better understand their students learning progress and needs, by providing the resources to collect evidence that indicates what information their students know and what skills they can perform. Assessments help teachers to not only identify and monitor learners’ strengths, weaknesses, learning and progress but also help them to better plan and conduct instruction. For these reasons, ongoing classroom assessment is the glue that binds teaching and learning together and allows educators to monitor their efficacy and student learning. 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... ... middle of paper ... ...tml#lesson Johnson, S., & Media, D. (2013). What Are Raw Scores? | The Classroom | Synonym. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://classroom.synonym.com/raw-scores-4447.html Munday, J. (2012, June 9). TESTING TERMS. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www.hishelpinschool.com/testing/test4.html Pearson, (2013). How Standardized Tests Are Created For Your Child. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQHoNfdbwMs Schultzkie, L. (2012). Percentiles. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/math/Algebra/AD6/quartiles.htm Stiggins, R., Arter, J., Chappuis, J., Chappuis, S., (2007). Classroom assessment for student learning: Doing it right -- using it well. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson. Wormeli, R. (2010). Formative and Summative Assessment. Stenhouse Publishers. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJxFXjfB_B4
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.
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2010). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(1), 81–90. doi:10.1177/003172171009200119
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
6.1 – The teacher candidate understands multiple methods of assessment including formative and summative assessment strategies to assess the learner’s progress and how to use them in a variety of ways
Assessment is the biggest contributor to helping teachers determine what concepts or topics need to be taught or even skipped. “The purpose of all assessment is to provide teachers with the information to best inform their teaching and work with individual children, Eliason, C. et al. Assessments are related to the curriculum in the fact that it can change the teacher’s plan. Assessments show the teacher what students may or may not know and their strengths and weaknesses. If you noticed that most of your class struggled on a certain topic the you, the teacher, will not move forward, but will reteach the concept. You will not know what to teach your class without giving some form of assessment. Assessment is critical and highly important in the classroom and effects how lessons are taught and the sequence of your
In the article Seven Practices for Effective Learning by Jay McTighe and Ken O’Connor, several assessment and grading practices are presented. Characteristics of summative, diagnostic, and formative assessments are outlined. Based on these categories, descriptions of each practice is provided and compared with other typical forms of assessment typically used by teachers in the category. Justifications of how and why the practices enhance student achievement are also revealed.
“Assessment is one of the most effective instructional strategies to increase learning.” (Edutopia)When teachers think about assessment quality, they often focus on the accuracy of the instrument itself- the scope of which the assessment item tasks and scoring rubrics produce accurate information. It is imperative to use the different testing technique to improve learning. By taking tests, students can establish that they are independently capable of expressing their understanding of the material. I will have an opportunity to analyze each student's understanding and ability to apply learned information. I can then decide whether the
Assessment is the systematic process of collecting data to provide insight into students’ learning experiences. Through assessment, educators can provide invaluable feedback to students, parents/carers, the wider community, government and school officials. Moreover, assessment can be a powerful tool for learning that can direct students’ learning experiences throughout their education and beyond (Readman & Allen, 2013). Assessment can be broadly divided into two categories: summative and formative. More recently, the concept of assessment has expanded to include the following types of assessment: assessment for learning, assessment of learning, and assessment as learning.
Assessments are important when teachers want to deliver high quality lessons and ensure the students understand the concepts before moving on. The assessment chosen for this assignment is a Letter to a Friend. This self-assessment strategy helps the teacher understand how clearly the students grasped the concepts within a unit (Sunal & Haas, 2011). For teachers who teach all subjects, this activity covers a few ELA standards as well.
The National Education Association suggests that assessment is a “continuous flow of evidence that can only be provided by classroom assessment.” (NEA, 2003) Balanced assessments can actually promote student learning and achievement. “To maximize student success, assessment must be seen as an instructional tool for use while learning is occurring, and as an accountability tool to determine if learning has occurred.” (NEA, 2003)
Formal and informal assessments help the teacher to monitor learning progress, diagnose learning issues, and determine what they need to do next to further learning. In a regular classroom activity, they collect information about how students learn, what they know, what is working and what is not, and it helps a teacher to take decisions about teaching and learning process. Reflection on student accomplishments offers instructors insights on the effectiveness of their teaching strategies. By systematically gathering, analysing and interpreting evidence we can determine how well the student learning matching the outcomes for a lesson, unit or course. The knowledge from student feedback indicates the instructor that how to improve instruction, where to strengthen teaching. Pre- assessment, formative assessment and summative assessment are different types of
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
In the teaching profession, assessment is one of the most important things that teachers need to know. Not only to know the assessment itself, but also the critical elements of it. Chueachot, Srisa-ard, and Srihamongkol (2013) stated that Assessment for learning in elementary classroom is a concept that aims to stimulate self-learning and development among the student via assessment model. In addition, the authors came up with a conclusion of assessment for learning in elementary school that can be divided into two stages, each with 3 steps, altogether 6 steps: First stage of assessment, The planning stage is composed of (1) define assessment objectives and what students need to achieve (2) define
Assessment in education must, first and foremost, serve the purpose of supporting learning. Assessment is the process of gathering data. More specifically, assessment is the ways instructors gather data about their teaching and their students’ learning (Hanna & Dettmer, 2004).