Embedded Files
I have come to rely heavily on assessment in all its various forms, because they tell me what students need next and inform my instructional planning. Frequently I would informally assess students through questions and by circulating during their discussions or writing assignments at their tables. I would ask them to give me a thumbs-up if they had an idea in mind to start working with. Every day at the start of school, students would write in Daily Oral Language journals, and each day they would have a different task that ranged from math to logic to opinion writing. I would collect these journals and give students written feedback, encouraging them to be proud of their progress and effort, to improve in specific areas, and to self-assess. I would also circulate and work extensively one-on-one with certain students to encourage them to stop and self-check their work (5.1, 5.2, 5.3).
When parent-teacher conferences approached, I was heavily involved in the assessment process, from conducting assessments to grading them to inputting the scores into spreadsheets so that the data would be ready for report cards. Once all the work was done, my CT and I handed all the graded assessments back to students temporarily so they could see how they did and be "in the loop." Lastly, I learned from my CT how to share both the data from formal assessments as well as student work from portfolios to give a broad and full understanding of the student's academic performance (5.4, 5.5).
Another assessment area I gained experience in was in online assessments. For example, I proctored STAR reading and math assessments, helped to administer the ELPAC, and observed students take the AR reading comprehension quizzes. All these assessments gave me a look at standardized testing and broadened my knowledge of how to use and interpret scores to help students continue to grow (5.6, 5.7, 5.8).
Opinion Writing Rubric
When I taught opinion-writing, I created a rubric for students to self-assess their work, explaining that afterwards I would use the same rubric to assess their writing. For certain students who were independent enough, I paired them or grouped them and had them use the rubric to check each other's work and offer peer feedback. They enjoyed this process and it encouraged them to take more care and pride in their work (5.3).
Grading Guide and Report Card Assessments
I learned that many formal assessments must be administered for report cards, and all that data must be kept organized. It also must be paired with the teacher's knowledge of the student and with the student's collected work. I enjoyed getting to share students' progress with parents during conferences after all these assessments were completed!
This assessment was for our water and climate unit and was one required to be used by all the 3rd grade teachers at our school. It was a long assessment covering much information, so I encouraged students to think of strategies to review information beforehand and teach themselves using drawings and notes in their science journals. Then, during the assessment, I encouraged them to use it as a way to jog their memory and reflect on all the investigations and experiments we had conducted during this unit. Recalling our hands-on work and the lessons we learned from it would not only help our unit stay in their brains longer, but it would also be a way for them to remember information for the assessment.
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