Reflection

ELNG 310 Portfolio Activity Week 6

Formative Assessment for Writing

Reflection

Why did you choose to include this activity?

I chose to include this activity because I believe assessing a student's writing will help them improve when writing future pieces. Doing formative assessments allows students to see where they when wrong and where they can improve for next time. When looking at the class's work you can find out what needs to be worked on to improve their writing. Comparing two pieces of a student's work will allow the students and teacher to see the improvement. Having a rubric makes it clear what is expected, but does not make it summative. By assessing students writing and correcting the mistakes right from the beginning will help the student stop their bad habits and improve by practicing the good habits. Lettering, capitalization, periods and spacing are all very important to learn and practice from a young age, so these skills can be used correctly. A student's writing will improve when they know what they need to work on. Comparing two or more writing pieces makes it easy to visualize the improvement between the students writing skills. This activity reflects my own learning because I made a rubric to go along with the lesson. Rubrics are a great way to look at assessments.

What course goals does this activity connect to?

What strategies facilitate diagnostic, formative and summative assessment in ELA? There are many different kinds of assessments that get used in the classroom. Diagnostic assessment is when two pieces of a student's work are compared to see if there is an improvement. For example, a pre-test and a post-test because the teacher is able to see if the student has learned something from the unit compared to what they knew before. This is a great way to see where students are and what needs to be focused on in the upcoming lessons. A formative assessment is when something is assessed but it is not for marks. It is mainly for the student and teacher to see where the individual is at (What is the difference between formative and summative assessment?, 2021). This can be useful to do throughout the school year multiple times while learning a new unit. A summative assessment is a major assessment that is most often times for marks. This would include a final project, exam, or essay that takes place that the end of a unit or school year (What is the difference between formative and summative assessment?, 2021). Assessment is to be used in the classroom to gather data for each student.

What course concepts/ideas are reflected in the activity? Include citations.

Assessment can be used for many things in the classroom. Formative assessment can be used to see where students are at and use the results gathered to adapt further lessons (Saskatchewan Reads, 2015). Assessment does not just need to be done by the teacher. Self-assessments and peer-assessments are also great tools to use in the classroom. There are many types of assessment tools that can be used to do assessments, such as checklists, portfolios, rubrics, observation, etc. (Saskatchewan Reads, 2015). In the classroom, it is important to do a variety of different types of assessments so students can show what they know in a variety of ways.

How has your thinking about the activity changed over the semester and/or what questions do you have about this activity?

This course has made me realize formative assessment is often more useful than summative assessments. Formative assessment can show the improvement of a student, but it can also show what needs to be worked on. When writing I think it is important to work on improvement instead of just the final product. If a summative assessment was the only assessment that was done during a unit it would be hard to see the individuals improvement. Assessment is very important in the education world and needs to be done well by educators. This is an area I don't feel the most comfortable in because I have never assessed a student's work. This will come with practice in the classroom!