My experience with assessment before beginning this class was very limited. I have not had much experience with developing or practicing assessments and have difficulty coming up with methods of conducting assessment that will help me gain insight into my students’ learning. Up until this point I have always been told that assessment does not matter at the moment, and I will learn how to do it later. So, because of this I have spent most of my time focusing on the creation of unit and lesson plans without putting much thought into the ways I would assess students during the real-life lesson. However, as I learn more about the backwards by design method of lesson and unit planning, I am realizing just how important having a firm understanding of assessment is. So far, I have learned that assessment can be used for a variety of reasons. Assessment can be used to determine what the next lesson in a unit should be, communicate student progress with the adults in the student’s life, and to help students to set goals and see where they are going. Assessment helps to address the learning goals of the lesson or unit, making it much easier to answer the three main questions in this course, ‘Where are we going?’, ‘How are we doing?’, and ‘Where to next?’, giving a very clear plan as the the purpose of every lesson that is taught in the classroom. I am very excited to continue my journey in learning how to conduct meaningful assessments, as I feel this is an important new tool to add to my knowledge of teaching so far.
By April 11, 2024, I want to be able to identify multiple ways (3-4 ways) assessment could be conducted in my lessons to better suit individual student needs.
This S.M.A.R.T. goal aligns with the course outcome “explore assessment strategies with focus on their implications for classroom practice”. I chose this outcome because I feel that it is important to not only understand assessment in theory but also how it will work in real life classroom application. I understand that different students need different types of assessment to show their learning to the best of their abilities, so making a goal that will help me in understanding how to accommodate for these needs is really important to me. As I begin my teaching career it is important that I am able to teach my students as well as I can, so giving students the space to be assessed in many different ways will give me the ability to see where they are at in their learning in the most accurate way possible. I plan to achieve my goal by taking note in class lectures and readings of the different assessment techniques discussed, as well as trying different types of assessment with my students throughout my three-week block with the guidance of my co-op teacher. I will discuss the progress I have made and the ways I reached my goal on April 11, 2024, in my E-Portfolio.