It’s important that you have good assessment because good assessment can help to properly measure a students' progress and understanding of the content in class and engage them with their learning (Cowan, 2005). Specifically, it can indicate to both teachers and students where their limitations lie. Assessments can also affect a teacher's lesson plan. Depending on the results of the assessments, teachers may need to take into consideration future lesson plans. If the assessment yields good results, then the teacher may proceed to a more advanced level of content; if not, then the teacher will need to rethink the pacing of her lessons and focus on the content the students didn't understand. Sometimes, you will be able to reteach a part of the lesson, but if students are still unable to grasp the lesson, you may need to reteach the whole lesson (Lewis, 2018).

There are two different types of assessments: formative and summative. Formative assessment is used often to monitor the student's learning; results from formative assessments help teachers determine the student's understanding of a particular content and is used as reference to plan future lessons. Summative assessment is not used often, but has heavy implications as it measures the students understanding at a particular point in time, i.e. the end of a unit (Dolin et al, 2018). In the classroom, my mentor uses both forms of assessment to measure her student's academic progress and abilities. During my placement, I noticed that my mentor has adopted both formative and summative assessment to help monitor her student's understanding. She creates her own handouts, for both formative and summative assessment, to cater towards the learning objectives of the lesson. This is perfect for students because that way they won't feel as if the work is too hard for them. She also conducts formative and summative assessment inside and outside the classroom, so students have a variety of ways to finish their assessments.

There are several things you need to keeping mind when designing a good assessment. As stated, good assessments measures a student's progress and understanding of a content. Therefore, when designing assessment, one should keep in mind several principles of good assessment to incorporate into their assessments, as principles of assessments can help to create appropriate and effective assessments (Brown et al, 2010).

Formative Assessments

My mentor follows a myriad of principles of assessments when it comes to creating her assessments. One of the most comment assessment my mentor adopts is formative assessment through Math Boxes in their Math book. Each math box has four questions asking students to answer questions based on what they had learned previously. Taking a look at this formative assessment, I can immediately tell that she ensures her math boxes are valid, reliable, manageable, and gives timely feedback.

Having validity in the assessment means the assessment is accurate as it correctly measures the student's achievements in accordance to the objectives of the assessment. My mentor's math boxes are valid, as they are assigned the work after the teacher conducts their math lesson, allowing it to be connected topic they had just learned. It's important that assessment be valid so that it can clarify to the students they have achieved the objectives of the lesson.

Reliability means that the assessment is consistent and does not falsely misrepresent students' achievement; reliability is a pre-condition to validity. My mentor's math boxes are reliable because it consists of multiple questions with the same lesson objectives, giving students the opportunity to practice their skill. Reliability is important because it assures students they understood the content, and not have them believe it was a mere fluke.

Manageability means the assessment is manageable for students; they are able to complete the assessment without having it be a burden. My mentor's math boxes are manageable because the amount of questions are not overwhelming and students are able to finish the math boxes by the end of the day. It's important that assessment are manageable. If it is not, it can lead to stress in the students , which can lead to negative academic abilities ()

Lastly, timely feedback means the assessment provides the students immediate feedback. My mentor's math boxes are given timely feedback; since our math boxes are manageable, student submissions would come in fairly quickly and with the lesson being right before class, I have the opportunity to quickly check their work and give feedback if they made a mistake. I would also check it a couple more times throughout the day, since some students need a little bit more time than others to complete their work.

Summative Assessments

Another assessment my mentor incorporates is summative assessment. One way my mentor uses summative assessment is through a math test she conducts at the end of each unit. Along with validity, reliability, manageability and timely feedback, my mentor ensures that her summative assessment have transparency and relates to the learning objectives.

My mentor's math test is transparent because she ensures that she gives clear and consistent information regarding the math test and how to answer it. Before every math test, my mentor communicates to the students there are three different way their math test will be mark, in accordance of low to high excellence. A "smiley face" indicates that the student has done unsatisfactory work, a "check" indicates the student has done satisfactory work and a "check plus" indicates the student has done excellent work. She then goes into detail as to how to achieve the different marks. For our "Birds in a Tree" math test, my mentor explains that a smiley face means they got the answer wrong. A "check" means they answered the question correctly and wrote down how many birds flew away. A "check plus" means they answered the question correctly, wrote down how many birds flew away, included a number model and even drew the picture. I was surprised my mentor had informed the students how to solve it and at the same time pleased, because I remember when learning each teacher had different ways of grading. Therefore, the first couple of assessments would always yield in a lower result for the sole reason of teacher's expectations. Being transparent can definitely help dissuade students' fear in assessments, which can help to increase students' academic achievement

The math test also relates to the learning outcome as my mentor conducts the math test after a couple of weeks and at the end of the math unit. One of our units in math was number stories and one of our learning objective is to, "solve parts-and-total number stories within 10". My mentor's math test does this by creating an assessment based on a number stories about birds within a tree and asking students to figure out the missing part of the number story, as well as how total many birds flew away. It's the right thing to do to have assessments be measured based on a learning outcome as it provides equity for students when doing their test, seeing as all the students had prior knowledge about it. It also helps the students to reflect on their learning.

Effective feedback is an essential component of student learning. Feedback is the information you give to students to help improve their learning. Effective feedback can help to maximize the students' potential by identifying areas of strengths and weaknesses they have, as well as provide ways for students to take action to improve their work (McKimm, 2009). It's important you give students feedback because feedback can help to improve academic peformance (Vollmeyer et al, 2005). Sometimes, when students do their work, they can lose sight of the purpose of the assignment. They get caught up in other factors such as the aesthetic and not necessarily the learning behind it. When teachers give feedback to students, they are helping students to realign their work back to the learning outcomes. This will make them understand the purpose of the assignment, thus allowing them to score higher marks.

There are two different types of feedback my mentor gives to her students: formal and informal and she practices both kinds during her writing and Mathematics lesson.

Informal

One of the informal ways my mentor gives her student feedback is through verbal feedback. One of our writing units is "Writing How-To Books". One of the learning objectives for this particular unit is to "think of a topic, supply facts about a topic and end with a sense of closure". At the end of every writing lesson, my mentor calls a group of 3-5 students to stay behind class so she can work with them to help them write. Our small group discussions lasts around 20-30 minutes and my mentor watches them work and checks in with them.

One of the student's "How-To" books is about how to make a Nutella sandwich. First, my mentor asked him to read what he has written so far. After reading the story, my mentor first let him know he's done an excellent job sounding out difficult words and writing it down, as well as having it spread across three pages. Then she proceeded to tell him that sometimes, great authors include a list of ingredients to help readers have an easier time to make a Nutella sandwich and if he would like to include it. After informing the students this, he made a list of ingredients he needed and my mentor moved on to another student. One of the other student made a comment about how he's wasting paper because he only writes one sentence on each page. Then, my mentor asked him how long she should freeze the popsicle for, which led to a mini-lesson about including details in stories.

One of things I noticed about her feedback is that she develops a dialogue before giving feedback. I think it's great she does this because it allows her to create a "zone" of just her and the student in question, so the student can feel more comfortable. When she creates a dialogue with the student, it also becomes interactive and students also take part in building feedback for themselves as they build on what they have done to create something better. It makes it seem as if they're the ones who has reached the conclusion and gives them the knowledge that they have expanded their thinking. When creating this dialogue she also tries to maneuver the conversation into something specific. Having feedback be specific is great because then it pinpoints the exact area students need to improve. Lastly, I noticed that her feedback is given immediately. My mentor did not wait until the next small group discussion, or wait to give a new lesson about what the student was missing. Instead she gave her feedback right after she finishes talking with the student; and if the feedback is relevant in the next lesson, she will thank the student for inspiring her to include it in the writing lesson.

Formal

One of our formal forms of feedback is given when the student submits his or her work on Seesaw. There, students can show their teacher what they have accomplished, and can get formal feedback. One of the ways students get formal feedback is by submitting their Math boxes. Feedback for math boxes are quite easy to give; if students manage to get all four boxes correct, I would give them a "check" in accordance to their favourite colour to establish a "job well done!" If they get a question wrong, I would leave it unmarked and leave a voice message informing them the question they got wrong. I would also give them a hint to help them review their error. Sometimes, I would also leave students verbal feedback if they did something outstanding. During the beginning of the school year, my mentor emphasized the practice of writing number sentences. While marking their math boxes I noticed some students had incorporated number sentences in their math boxes, while others hadn't. It wasn't mandatory, but it was a good way to practice writing number sentences. Therefore, for those who went the extra mile, I would leave them feedback by commending their number sentences. I think combining verbal and visual feedback is a great way to give feedback to students. It gives students the option to listen or read their feedback depending on their learning style. Previously, I had only given students written feedback, but after a while I started leaving them verbal feedback as well. This is because I realized that some students were still struggling to read, and therefore may not be able to understand my feedback.