Philosophy of Assessment
Although not the most popular word in a chid’s education learning, according to research, assessments are a very important tool in efficient teaching. I plan to use the tool of assessment as a catalyst to student success in my classroom. In doing so, I will follow four types of assessments: formative, summative, informal and formal assessments.
Formative assessments provide feedback to both teachers and students on their progress in the class. Formative assessments are the different ways you can record work to monitor progress during a lesson and units. The different kinds of formative assessments we will use in the classroom will be:
- Homework assignments
- Pretests and quizzes for units.
- Group participation
- Student self-evaluation and goal setting
- Teacher/student questioning to engage students in conversation.
Along the lines of formative assessments, we’ll have informal assessment as well. Making observations of students and keeping anecdotal notes. Keeping progress portfolios, keeps records of their scores to add value to their work and evaluate student’s own performance and progress individually.
Summative assessments will be used to test all the accumulative knowledge a student has gathered throughout the year. A journal they kept all year adding new things to it every day. An essay assignment due at the end of the school year along with a class project and a pretest to get them ready for the standardized test.
The Formal assessments will include the grade level pretest and the required standardized testing at the end of the year. Standardized testing helps us gage how our class is doing to other classes, to other schools, to other districts, and to other states. Effective instructional strategies will help students in my class perform their best possible the standardized testing.
Like I wrote earlier, grading in the classroom will be used to add value to the student’s work as well as a tool to measure a student’s progress in my class. Based on grades, I will be better informed on how to help a student on an individual level. Grade can also be a motivator for students to do better. I plan on keeping criteria transparent for the students to follow and know what to expect from each assignment, in return, this will make it so that the process of grading is easier. I plan on dividing points almost evenly between classroom participation, attendance, homework assignments, and classroom work so that the students know each one of those factors is of equal importance. Formal testing will be given priority of a few more points so that students thrive for the goal of performing their best for the assessments.
I feel like using all these strategies will help me gage whether a student in my class in learning or not. Having all the information on that student’s performance will be a good measurement tool to see what the needs of that child are.