The competent teacher understands and uses appropriate formative and summative assessments for determining student needs, monitoring student progress, measuring student growth, and evaluating student outcomes. The teacher makes decisions driven by data about curricular and instructional effectiveness and adjusts practices to meet the needs of each student.
Google Forms test on Educational Psychology
The purpose of Standard 7 is to prepare teachers to assess students. Assessment comes in various different circumstances and designs. Students are assessed on every homework assignment, every exit slip, and every test. The results of assessments are used to help the teacher see how much the students know, show which areas need to be reviewed or explained differently, and to identify which teaching strategies work and do not work. Assessment is essential to see how far students have come and to show their progress. In this project, I created an online test for my students using Google Forms. The test consisted of eight multiple-choice questions at Bloom's Taxonomy level of application or higher. In addition to the multiple-choice questions, there were two short essays. I graded the tests and calculated percentages, z-scores, and t-scores to see how well my students performed. This information helps me to identify which questions were hard for students and which ones were easy. This test also helps me as a teacher to inquire if my own teaching strategies are effective or not.
Performance indicator 7J says, " uses assessment results to determine student performance levels, identify learning targets, select appropriate research-based instructional strategies, and implement instruction to enhance learning outcomes." This test and test analysis shows meeting this standard because I calculated every percentage and compared the scores to the class mean. Interpreting data is an important part of identifying a student's performance level. I noticed that some students performed poorly while other excelled. After investigating this, I realized that the student who received the lowest score probably received this score because he does not do well on multiple-choice tests. He prefers to simply write everything in his own words, and that is why he wrote magnificent answers for his essays. The student who received the highest score performed well because she understood the material and could apply it to the real-life situations on the test.
Performance indicator 7M shows, "maintains useful and accurate records of student work and performance." This analysis required a grade calculation and recording of every student's grade. These grades are useful and accurate because they keep track of what the student has learned and is used to measure "student growth," as Standard 7 says. Keeping accurate records is important because as teachers, we need to see how much our students are learning. What is working? What is not working? What can we change? This test reveals how well the student knew the material and the ability to communicate back to me, the teacher, how much he or she knew.
Performance indicator 7O says, "effectively uses appropriate technologies to conduct assessments, monitor performance, and assess student progress." I have met this part of the standard by creating an online test using Google Forms to assess my class. I used the results from this test to monitor my students' performance by seeing which questions were especially difficult and need review and seeing which ones everyone got right. These results help me to determine specific areas that the class needs help with and which areas they understand.
Through this assignment, I learned that assessing students comes in many different forms and requires variety. Also, when making a multiple-choice test, it is important to really think about which answers you create as a teacher. The answer options cannot easily reveal the correct choice, and they must not be too similar to the correct answer so as to confuse the student. Questions that require the students to apply concepts they have learned make for very good test questions because they show if the student really understands the concept, rather than just memorizing a definition and spitting it back onto the test without knowledge digestion. My strengths in this project were questions that were designed for student application as well as correctly calculated percentages, z-scores, and t-scores. My weakness was that my focus students' analysis could have been more in-depth. Good assessment of students is an important skill for teachers to have and will help teachers make the necessary strategy changes needed for their students to learn!
I took a class called Fine Arts in Education where we covered five areas of fine arts: visual arts, dance, drama, music, and literature. As our final project, each student had to create an assessment for the other students in the class. We needed a way for our classmates to show what they have learned in the class and demonstrate their knowledge through art. My assessment allows students to show what they learned during the class by choosing one of the five areas to show their knowledge. Each area of art has its own assignment with instructions and mini rubric to go along with it. The visual art project requires a poster where students must include certain requirements. If students choose the dance project, they will choreograph a dance or creative movement that shows the value of arts in education. Students who chose the music project will write a song that either tells the story of a student who overcomes a disability or struggle using art or tells how art integration in core subjects helps students learn better. The drama project gives students the opportunity to create their own commercial for parents about why the fine arts should be integrated into their children's core courses. The last option is the literature option. Students can write either a poem or a short story about a student who overcomes a disability/struggle by using art or tells the importance of fine art integration into core courses.
Knowledge indicator 7E of Illinois professional teaching standard 7 states that competent teachers understand "how to select, construct, and use assessment strategies and instruments for diagnosis and evaluation of learning and instruction." My fine arts assessment shows that I have met this criteria because I show understanding of selecting different methods for assessment. My assessment gives students options of ways that they can respond and show what they have learned. I understand that all students learn differently. By giving them five different ways to show their knowledge, I am reaching many different learning styles. My assessment also clearly describes the criteria needed to get a 100% by providing a mini rubric tailored to each different project.
Performance indicator 7R of Illinois professional teaching standard 7 states that competent teachers use "assessment strategies and devices that are nondiscriminatory, and take into consideration the impact of disabilities, methods of communication, cultural background, and primary language on measuring knowledge and performance of students." I provided my students with multiple ways to communicate their knowledge to me. Students had the option to create a poster, perform a creative movement routine, compose a song, write a poem/short story, or create a commercial. Students are able to use technology to complete any of these projects, providing an even greater amount of differentiation.
Through this experience I learned that students learn in different ways. Students express themselves in different ways. Students have different abilities. My professor pushed my to think about the abilities or disabilities of the different students in my classes someday. I also learned the importance of providing my students with clear directions on what I am requiring in the assignment, along with a clear rubric that shows what I will be grading on and how I will be grading it. Having clear communication with your students helps prevent issues from happening and prevents your students from being confused and leaving out information, using incorrect formats, or being stressed or anxious because they are unsure what to do.