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Assessing
the Classroom
The bottom line is this -- your
success as a teacher is going to be determined on the performance of your
students. How are you going to know if your students really understand
what they have learned? In our final WEB discussion let's look at ten
important points, as presented by Carol Marra Pelletier in her book
Strategies for successful Student Teaching, about the assessment and
documentation of your students' performance.
I. How Are My Students
Assessed and Evaluated?
Review all tests that the
students in your class were required to take this year. This will help
you gain some understanding of the context in which you have been
working. All of these tests relate to the environment for learning you
are attempting to create with your students in your cooperating teacher's
classroom. Reflect on these questions with your fellow cohorts on the
discussion page.
How does your supervising instructor use informal
assessment in the classroom?
How does your supervising instructor formally assess
students for understanding?
How do you plan to use informal and formal assessments in
your own classroom?
II. Linking Your Lesson
Plan to Your Assessment Instrument
Lesson planning and
assessment are linked. Your lesson plan and your assessment or evaluation
of the lesson should be written at the same time. This ensures that your
students will be responding to the key questions and objectives you
established. (Pelletier, p. 162) Talk about the following on the
discussion page.
Review a lesson plan you created during your student
teaching experience. Were your objectives clear? Did you know what you
wanted your students to learn? What type of assessment did you create?
Did your assessment approach match your lesson's activities and
objectives?
How does your supervising instructor create forms of
assessment? How do they relate to the lesson plan and lesson taught?
How do you know when students have developed an
understanding of a skill or topic?
III. Tapping into
Students' Prior Knowledge
An important part of
assessment is knowing where students are before you begin teaching.
Students come to your classroom with a varied background and experience
level related to the topic you may be presenting. Being able to assess
"this knowledge as part of your regular planning process is important to
designing lessons that meet the needs of the diverse learners in your
classroom." (Pelletier, p. 163) Discuss the following:
How have you experienced teachers tapping into your prior
knowledge?
How have you observed your supervising instructor tapping
into your students' prior knowledge?
How have you tapped into your students' prior knowledge?
IV. Product and Process
Assessments
Discuss the following
thought stimulators on Product and Process Assessments:
How do you observe student achievement?
Will a product let you know that the student achieved the
objectives or do you need to observe the student perform and demonstrate
the skill or understanding of the topic?
What is different about assessing a student's: 1)
paper/pencil product; 2) visual product; and 3) Performance Process (i.e.
oral report, speech, rap, dramatization, etc.)?
V. Setting Priorities
Understanding can be
demonstrated by observing the student explain, interpret, apply, persuade,
create, design, defend, critique, correct, summarize, translate, compare,
and contrast the information or skill in her/his own words. (Pelletier,
p. 166) Think about a recent unit you just taught and reflect on the
following questions:
What should students have been able to know or do at the
end of that lesson or unit? How did you know whether they achieved that
goal?
What was important for most of them to know? How did you
know?
What was worth knowing for some students? How did you
know?
VI. Formative and
Summative Assessments
Formative Assessment is practice -- your dress rehearsal.. It is
authentic, ongoing, sit beside, self-assessing, learn as we go, practice,
group work conversations, checklists, surveys, drill, practice tests.
Summative assessment is final -- the opening night of the play. It is the
final test, grade given to an individual student, final evaluation,
judgment given at the end of the unit or term, report card grade, SAT,
final product, paper test, project artwork, final performance, Spanish
oral exam. (Pelletier, p. 167) Discuss the following:
How have you used formative assessments in your teaching?
How have you used Summative evaluations in your teaching?
VII. Using Rubrics to
Assess Performance
Rubrics are beneficial
because they take an objective look at the overall performance of the
student. They also serve as a guide for students to know what level or
work is expected of them.
What school work of yours, as a student, as been assessed
using rubrics? Was it helpful? Why or why not?
Have you used rubrics in assessing your students'
performance? Share the experience.
VIII. Authentic
Assessment
Pelletier (p. 169) defines
authentic assessment as an alternative approach to observing student
achievement. It is not traditional and it allows the teacher to see
whether the student can explain, demonstrate, and justify the skill or
understanding in his/her own words revealing understanding of the
concepts, objectives, and key questions. Authentic assessments are useful
with all students, but particularly helpful with children with special
needs, bilingual students, and gifted and talented students who may not be
able to respond to summative tests.
Do any of your students have special needs? Emotional
needs? Physical needs? How will you assess their progress and
achievement?
Are any of the students in your classroom bilingual? How
have you assessed these students?
IX. Record-Keeping
Strategies
Teachers use many
different systems to keep track of student progress. Gradebooks and
computer programs are two of the most commonly used systems.
Has your supervising instructor shared her/his grading
system with you? What do you like about it? What frustrations to you
find with it?
How are you going to decide whether your record keeping
system is effective or not?
X. Student
Self-Assessment
Does your supervising instructor use any student self-assessment tools?
Does s/he ask students to assess their own learning? If so, how?
Pelletier (p. 171, 172)
offers the following examples that you can use to help students assess
their own progress:
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Hard or Easy - As
students whether they are finding the work hard or easy. Make a graph
to see how many students are finding things hard or easy.
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More Time - Ask students
to write one or two things they learned in class today. Collect and see
what they wrote. Adjust for their needs.
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Work Habits - Create a
worksheet that asks questions that the students have to rate from 1 to
5.
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Teacher Assessment -
Create a sheet about you and your skills in teaching. Rate each 1 to 5.
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Group Assessment -
Create a sheet for cooperating groups to assess their ability to work
together and learn the information in a group. They have to come to
consensus in their rating of each item you create.
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