Standard 5-Assessment
“Uses a variety of methods to monitor student learning.”
One way that I can support student learning is by providing specific and immediate feedback. Students can also give themselves feedback if given opportunities for reflection and self-evaluation.
The purpose of assessments is to give students, their teachers, and administrators/policy makers feedback on the progress students are making towards learning goals. With respect to Minnesota state standards, assessments can help determine whether students are on track for graduation. For this reason, all of my formal assessment questions and activities this year have been linked to a specific state benchmark.
It is important that assessment is part of the learning process, not just something that comes after this process is over. This is where formative assessments are important. These assessments give the students feedback as to what they need to work on. In can also make a teacher aware of misconceptions and topics that need reteaching.
It is also important to keep in mind that students have different strengths when it comes to assessments. Some may excel at written exams, some at oral exams, and some at multiple-choice exams. Many students struggle with all of these exam methods and therefore need to show their learning using non-linguistic representations such as movement and drawings. Because every student is different, and it is difficult to design an exam for each individual, I choose to rotate the methods used to assess students.
One way that I can support student learning is by providing specific and immediate feedback. Students can also give themselves feedback if given opportunities for reflection and self-evaluation.
The purpose of assessments is to give students, their teachers, and administrators/policy makers feedback on the progress students are making towards learning goals. With respect to Minnesota state standards, assessments can help determine whether students are on track for graduation. For this reason, all of my formal assessment questions and activities this year have been linked to a specific state benchmark.
It is important that assessment is part of the learning process, not just something that comes after this process is over. This is where formative assessments are important. These assessments give the students feedback as to what they need to work on. In can also make a teacher aware of misconceptions and topics that need reteaching.
It is also important to keep in mind that students have different strengths when it comes to assessments. Some may excel at written exams, some at oral exams, and some at multiple-choice exams. Many students struggle with all of these exam methods and therefore need to show their learning using non-linguistic representations such as movement and drawings. Because every student is different, and it is difficult to design an exam for each individual, I choose to rotate the methods used to assess students.
A Variety of Assessments
Because the learning styles of my students are so varied, I also try to vary the types of assessments I use. I also occasionally let students choose from different assessment options. The rubrics below are examples of non-test assessments that make assessments a part of the learning process (instead of something that happens after learning has stopped).
- For the Mitosis presentations, students chose from a variety of presentation formats including rapping, dancing, and using clay models. See here (artifact 2) for examples of student work from this assessment.
- The RAFT writing assessment also involves an element of choice. I let students chose (from a list) what role they would play, who their audience would be, and what their stance on stem cells was.
- For the Muscular System assessment, I ask students to design and perform a commercial for the muscular system.
- The Water Quality assessment was a project that asked students to design a sustainable solution to prevent prescription drugs in drinking water. In addition to assessing students’ knowledge on water treatment, it also assessed student’s ability to plan, design, problem solve, and work together.
- The Cell Transport test is a more typical written exam. The document below shows the short answer responses from a student who clearly had an in-depth understanding of the content.
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Writing in Science
I believe that the importance of writing and communication in science are underestimated. A successful scientist must be able to communicate and explain his or her results with the public. For this reason, I stress the importance of writing in my classroom. Students complete one "deep-question", essay-type, assignment every week or two. This gets them in the practice of being able to explain what they have learned. It also gives many of my quieter students a place to shine and be creative. In the example below, the student decided to write a game-show for her answer.
Pre-Assessments
In addition to assessing students during and after a learning process, it is important to assess students before beginning a learning process. This serves both to activate prior knowledge and to provide a guide for what/how things should be taught. The pre-assessments below both target misconceptions. It is particularly important to address misconceptions in a unit such as evolution where students have often heard misinformation.
Skeletal and Muscular Systems Pre-Assessment | |
File Size: | 16 kb |
File Type: | docx |
TPA Assessment Commentary (Teacher Performance Assessment)This component of the TPA asks me to submit multiple sources of evidence to assess and analyze the learning of three students. (For more information on the TPA see this website.) I describe how the assessments were aligned with the learning objectives and analyze the whole class’s performance on the assessment in relation to the identified learning objectives. I also document feedback given to the focus students and describe the next steps of instruction.
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Synthesis
Assessments provide evidence of student learning and effective instruction. The artifacts above are evidence of my theory that assessment should be a part of the learning process (not just something that happens afterwards.) They also show that I like to vary the ways in which students are assessed in order to appeal to a diverse group of student’s strengths. Pre-assessment, formative assessments and post-assessments are all important.