7. Assessment

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.

Ch. 3 Test Educational Psychology Woolfolk

Test Analysis Report

Rationale

The Chapter Three Test that I created for the students who took Educational Psychology using the Pearson Education Psychology Fourteenth Edition by Anita Woolfolk was a summative assessment following the instruction given on Chapter 3. The test was given to assess the growth of knowledge of the students' for key subject matter including physical and motor development, parenting styles, Erikson's Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development, Identity and Self-Concept, along with understanding of others and moral development. This test was an important aspect of monitoring student progress and determining the needs of the students.

Test questions were created using higher level thinking based on Bloom's Taxonomy. All questions were created at the application and analysis levels. Each question has one correct answer and three distracters. The idea is for students to not be able to just look answers up in the book, but to know the information and be able to apply it and analyze it in real life situations. This is done to evaluate the outcomes of the students, to determine what they have learned as well as any common areas of need. The essay questions were also created at the Bloom's Taxonomy levels of evaluating and creating. This gives students the opportunity to use creative thinking skill and to evaluate the new knowledge they have gained making connections to their own lives and future careers outside of the classroom. Feedback is provided to the students as a way of continued learning and understanding.

Analyzing the data report helps me as the teacher to better understand what areas I need to improve on during instruction and what questions may need to be re-written. I did not look at the student's names when grading the essay tests to prevent any bias. The summative analysis of chapter three helps me to determine the level of proficiency the students have achieved of the content. This test is valid and reliable. The test is repeatable, and the content is supported by evidence from the Woolfolk book. The multiple-choice test answers are relatable to the subject matter, requiring that students can recognize unstated assumptions. The essay questions were graded based on specific criteria using creative thinking and application of prior knowledge. Students were given the opportunity to provide personal experience. Over all, this test was a necessary tool used to assess the student knowledge, understanding, ability to practically apply the newly gained knowledge, as well as to provide the teacher the information to determine areas of strength and weakness to improve future effectiveness of instruction and assessment.

Rationale:

During my student teaching I was able to teach the volleyball unit, from start to almost the end. I was able to look at the curriculum and the standards, and create lesson plans building in volleyball skills and knowledge. This assessment was used as a worksheet/semester work in order to see what the students have learned. This was not the only assessment of course, each day, I also observed the students for their skills such as bump, set, serve, spike, block, and dig.

This was an assessment that was used during the volleyball unit to demonstrate evidence of student learning. The students did fairly well on the worksheet. I was more so amazed my how many of them improved so much in just a few weeks with their volleyball skills. It was way more enjoyable to watch games of volleyball when students were doing well with their skills and playing by the rules.

With this assessment, I learned of course that the students were capable of getting most of the questions correctly. But reflecting on the worksheet, I learned that question number five could have been written better because there were a couple of choices that could have been correct. I also learned by observing students that they need additional instruction for the skill of bumping, so I took another part of their class to work on bumping skills. Assessments can be used to see where students are, see what they have learned, and to see how I am doing as a teacher. You do not want to spend time teachig students things they know or teaching them thing that are too advanced. Assessments help to meet students where they are.