Assessment Design

There are multiple types of assessments, but four are the most widely used: formal vs. informal, and formative vs. summative. Formal assessments are assessments are those that typically take place at predetermined times throughout a sequence of learning. Instruction is halted, and teachers provide little or no support for students. Quizzes, tests, and performance tasks are the best examples of these. Informal assessments, however, tend to take place during instruction. They may be planned or impromptu, usually take little time to complete, and the teacher may provide support for students. These types of assessments frequently include exit tickets, classwork assignments, and teacher observations. How the results of an assessment are used determines whether we define it as formative or summative. Formative assessment results are used to determine future instruction, and summative assessment results are used to communicate learning at the end of a predefined period of time. Because of this, assessments can be used for formatively and summatively.

A strong formal assessment program balances two main types of assessments: traditional assessments and performance-based assessments. Traditional assessments are generally thought of as tests and quizzes that use multiple choice, true/false, matching, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and essay items to assess student learning (Gareis & Grant, 2015). Performance-based assessments, on the other hand, “require more in-depth thinking and analysis, assessing a range of intended learning outcomes within one task” (Gareis & Grant, 2015). To create a balanced assessment framework, a district first needs to unpack all standards to determine which can be tested using traditional assessments, and which will require performance-based assessments. Creating a document called a Table of Specifications can help considerably. In a Table of Specifications, educators list out all the standards for a given unit in a chart, note their cognitive levels, and determine the best method of assessment for each.

The artifacts below show examples of how to create and evaluate an assessment of student learning.