Assessment

The assessment course allowed me to focus on best practices in my teaching and how that related to what I was asking my students to do as they showed mastery of a content area.

Three take aways here that I feel every teacher could benefit from:

1. All assessments must have reliability and validity for those performing and those administering. Is this assessment accurate at showing whether the student has learned (reliability)? By the student performing the assessment will I be able to know that he has learned what was intended (validity)?

2. Teaching with the end in mind directly relates to the assessment we prepare our students for to show mastery of the content area. The best way, as research has showed, is through learning targets that are students friendly, visited in class often, and measurable to show growth.

3. Understanding that there are things we ask students to do that are episodes "of" learning and there are episodes "for" learning. Which episodes do you feel is important to assess?

Ah ha's that I was able to experience in my classroom:

• • Student data, when collected and analyzed creates excellent re-teach opportunities.

  • Data that you take is not just right or wrong, it can have qualitative properties. This is sometimes more important in assessment data analysis. The more qualitative data, the better the "snapshot" of the child.

  • Data, using well made rubrics, can be collected on anything from presentation skills to content knowledge about physics.

  • Data analysis drives the pace, next step, and depth at which one teaches their curriculum.

  • Assessment can be directly related to matching groups of students together based on strength in certain areas.

• Students and parents appreciate seeing growth/decline in data.

Strategies that I now use because of MWBLI:

• When giving students an assessment, in order for assessments to be of high quality they must relate to learning targets, tap into higher order thinking, and lead to deeper understanding (rather than surface learning).

• Rubrics give direction, expectation, and focus towards meeting meaningful assessment requirements.

Where did this information come from?