“Assessment is today's means of modifying tomorrow's instruction.”
- Carol Ann Tomlinson
Meet The Assessments
Formative assessment is the heart and soul of the learning process. These activities must be measurable and available for reflection by students and teachers.
All of the activities designed in a lesson should support student awareness of content mastery. These activities should gauge student understanding and progress in a quantifiable way.
These activities include independent practice, pair work, small group work, and project-based learning.
Self-report and reflection is frequently a component of formative assessment analysis.
I create summative assessments at the start of unit planning. Backward planning is a powerful strategy I use to ensure that the final assessment directly addresses the standards, goals, and objectives of each unit.
Like running a marathon, if I begin with a clear starting point and finish line, I can easily plan a route that will efficiently get me to my destination.
As mentioned under the section differentiation, I have begun designing more choices of summative assessment. I strongly value giving students choices when I can. By creating options for students to show their mastery of content, I reinforce a student-centered approach to learning and am more likely to get an acurate picture of what students have learned.
Pre-assessment serves two purposes. The first, more obvious goal is to assess prior knowledge and misconceptions. I like to implement a variety of pre-assessments, such as an anticipation guide, KWL charts, group discussions, and entry tickets. My second goal in pre-assessment is to gauge students' readiness to learn. These pre-assessment activities address the social/emotional needs of the learners. Examples are a simple "thumbs-up, thumbs-down" check-in or mood monitor activity. Frequently I link the start of the lesson to whichever classroom rule or expectation is most applicable to the lesson activities.
Pre-assessing students' academic and emotional readiness allows me to make real-time adjustments to my lesson plan.
Pre
Assessment
Formative
Assessment
