Assessment
InTASC Standard #6: The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learner’s decision making.
INTRODUCTION
In my first year of teaching, assessments terrified me – they were these intimidating documents that resulted in data that would somehow indicate my worth and effectiveness as a teacher. I wanted my students to do well on their assessments so that I felt I did well in my job. However, I quickly realized that (1) I did not understand the purpose of using various types of assessments, and (2) much like the many realizations I had in my first year of teaching, my fear of assessments was that of a selfish teacher.
When I began to use various types of assessments, starting simply with chapter quizzes scattered throughout a unit in preparation for a unit exam, I began to understand the importance of data and was able to use that data to monitor my students’ progress and understanding. Then, with that same data, I realized how much easier and more meaningful it was to choose specific skills to target and focus on in the classroom. Step by step, in this manner of trial and error and learning that assessment did not always look like an exam and a bubble sheet, I honed my skills and chose types of assessments that worked for my students and myself, and that yielded the most gain in progress monitoring and decision making.
Below I have provided access to the multiple methods of assessment I use in my classroom daily, weekly, periodically, and annually. Please click through each section to analyze how I use each type of assessment for progress monitoring and planning, as well as to evaluate how building a culture of error has allowed my students to embrace challenge and motivate themselves to grow in 7th grade reading.
Diagnostic Assessments
In this section, I discuss and illustrate how I use data collected from the MAP test and aggressive monitoring to inform my instructional practice and engage students in their own learning processes.
Formative assessments
See this section to analyze how I use exit tickets, chapter quizzes, and annotation checks daily and weekly to gather data during the learning process and inform steps needed for remediation.
Summative Assessments
This section examines the planning, intellectual preparation, and results of my students’ end of unit exam, as well as how that data is used to monitor student progress and guide instruction of the next unit.
CONCLUSION
Finally, in my fourth year of teaching, I have grown from apprehension of data to embracing assessment as a vital cornerstone of my curriculum. I have developed a routine of diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments that exist within each unit in an intentional manner and build off of each other in order to ensure student success. I have also learned how to utilize the data gained from each of these to inform my teaching practices, planning, and pacing, and in doing so, I have come to accept that the data is not always good — and on those days, I know that my instruction must be better so that my students are motivated, not discouraged. It is only by creating a culture of error, of “good to better to best,” for both myself and my students, that I have been able to engage my students in their growth and guide both the learners’ and the teacher’s decision making — all without either teacher or students fearing the assessment.