Assessing learning

Jan. - Apr. 2019 (Year 4 Practicum)

Assessment Goal:

• Provide students with rich, meaningful feedback that speaks to areas of strength and areas for growth that will inform their next steps.

Action Plan:

• Ensure that feedback is given in a timely manner.
• When possible, discuss the feedback with the student.
• Involve students in the assessment process (e.g., create a rubric together, have them do a self-assessment, etc.), so there are no surprises.
• Make sure feedback is clear and specific and speaks to areas of strength as well as areas for growth.
• Give students time to review feedback and ask questions.

Artifact:

• Linked below is a rubric we used for persuasive essay writing.
• Persuasive Essays Rubric

Sept. - Dec. 2017 (Year 3 Practicum)

• Math Assessment

In my practicum I was fortunate to have the opportunity to teach Mathematics quite frequently. Linked above is an example of an assessment tool I made to assess both Gr. 3 and 4 students understanding of place value and subtraction with and without regrouping.

Jan. - Apr. 2017 (EDUC 2375-002)

• Lesson Plans - Gr. 5/6 Physical Education

Linked above are two back-t0-back lesson plans that I created to teach and assess the skill of passing in the basket-ball unit. The first lesson focusses on formative assessment and the second lesson has a summative assessment piece. Both lessons were created using backwards design and centred around differentiated learning.

Teaching Competency Goal: Teach to the outsides and not the middle.

Action Plan: My goal is to continue to differentiate instruction so that it reaches all students and not just the students in the middle. In order to do this I will focus on students with diverse learning needs and make sure my lesson is suited to their learning needs. I will not give exceptional students simply more work but give them an added challenge that is directly related to the work already given. I will not teach to the middle because then students with diverse learning needs will get left behind.

Jan. - Apr. 2016

• Journal Excerpt - Assessment

Above is a link to an excerpt from my journal where I wrote about assessing a student's reading level when they appeared to be a very strong reader. I looked at Bloom's Taxonomy and noted how important it is that the student develops the skills to comprehend and analyze what they are reading as well as being able to read fluently.

Growth:

When I was planning lessons for the class I was a part of, assessment was the most difficult part for me. The program outcomes suggest that we should, "Use assessments to identify learner needs [and] adjust instruction and include varied ways of addressing misunderstandings" (A2). I am interested in continuing to learn about formative and summative assessment strategies in order to clearly identify needs and misunderstandings in the classroom. I also want to learn about how I can help students who face test anxiety feel more comfortable during assessment or at least turn their anxiety into facilitative anxiety rather than debilitative. I have learned that assessment can look very different from student to student in order to properly assess a student's needs and determine what level they are at.

Actions:

Assessment is a crucial part of teaching and I look forward to learning more about it next year in EDUC 2375, Effective Assessment - Measurement and Evaluation. I also will observe how my mentor teachers assess their students and ask them about how they assess students with different skill levels or abilities.