“When assessment becomes a regular part of the learning process, students become increasingly skilled at focusing on key learning targets, reflecting on their own work in regard to those targets, setting goals and timelines for their learning, and providing meaningful feedback to one another” (Tomlinson, Moon, & Imbeau, 2015, p. 8).
When students and some parents hear the word assessment many
of them immediately think of grades. While most grades are derived from summative
assessment of some type, many assessments are formative in type and useful tools to provide teachers
an opportunity to shape instruction based on the needs of the students. They
can also be a method for furthering student engagement as well as
responsibility for learning. I believe that truly effective instruction
consists of much assessment in such varying forms that often students do not
realize what they are doing is an assessment at all because they are simply
engaged in the learning process.
I encourage you to read the entire article cited in this
post as it discusses far more than I have mentioned here and provides insights
on how curriculum as well as assessment can impact student achievement.
Link to article:
References:
Tomlinson, C. A., Moon, T. & Imbeau, M. B. (2015). Assessment and student success in a differentiated classroom [White paper]. Retrieved March 12, 2017, from Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/assessment-and-di-whitepaper.pdf
Tomlinson, C. A., Moon, T. & Imbeau, M. B. (2015). Assessment and student success in a differentiated classroom [White paper]. Retrieved March 12, 2017, from Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/assessment-and-di-whitepaper.pdf
Assessment is an essential part of teaching. Report cards require grades, and to get those grades teachers must assess their students. Usually when teachers hear the word assessment their first response is to make some type of test, or print the curriculum included tests. Of course these methods give teachers what they need to complete their grade books and report cards, but surely there has to be other ways to measure what the students have learned without it always being the dreaded pencil and paper tests. Teachers are now learning that assessment can and should come in many different forms. Many teachers feel as though a lot of their time is spent trying to figure out how they will measure their students' knowledge about what they have taught in the classroom. What many have not figured out is that it is possible to measure learning without giving a huge test that the students hate or can require many hours to grade. Assessment can be as simple as having students complete a graphic organizer about the lesson or having them act out a reading assignment instead of writing a two page book report. If teachers look a little deeper into their students to find their interests we can find fun and exciting ways to assess their learning. It's more fun for them and it eases the burden of making and grading a large number of tests on the teacher.
ReplyDeleteAssessment feeds the growth of success.
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