Course Reflection: Applied Inquiry & Assessment

6.2 Designing Student Assessments with an Emphasis on Formative Assessment

 Teacher has a well-developed strategy to using formative assessment and has designed particular approaches to be used. To me this means the teacher has purposefully designed assessments to be used within a lesson or unit. These assessments are meant to provide meaningful feedback a teacher can use to guide instruction. Formative assessments are the guiding force of a lesson. They are low-stakes assessments that work as routine check-ups of student learning. They influence how a teacher teaches, as well as, what to review, adjust, or re-teach. Therefore, it is vital that a teacher have a comprehensive plan for how these assessments will be used to improve student learning. EDU 6160 Applied Inquiry and Assessment, has shown me that a teacher needs to use a variety of formative assessments types to assess students effectively. The teacher has planned assessments that are aligned not only with the desired learning outcome, but also with the individual learners in mind.

In my own Secondary Language Arts Classroom, I have put to use many of the types of formative assessments suggested by our text, Classroom Assessment: Supporting Teaching and Learning in Real Classrooms (Taylor & Nolan, 2008). The image shown is an example of student work of a formative assessment on our current in-class novel, Bud, Not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis. In conjunction with our novel, students worked on and practiced many literary devices including context clues, character traits, inference, and text evidence. The example is a portion of a comprehension and skill check in which students answered questions on their most recent text reading using the prescribed literary devices. This was done first individually and then in group discussions. In addition, we reviewed, as a class, the questions in which I overheard misconceptions about. This process allowed students to first use their skills individually and then peer-assess with other students. Major misconceptions were cleared up with whole class discussion.

Whether it be a worksheet, quiz, test, or pre-assessment, formative assessments are a teacher’s guide to effective student learning. Moving forward, I still have concerns regarding how to best choose an assessment for specific skill evaluation.  In order to grow in this area, I plan to seek colleague collaboration and feedback. I feel there are many valuable lessons to be learned from my co-workers and that I don’t need to “re-create the wheel” when there are resources available.

Reference

Taylor, C. S., & Nolen, S. B. (2008). Classroom assessment: Supporting teaching and learning in real classrooms. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall.