The Three Imperatives
In order to truly understand and plan assessments, we first must understand why and how we assess or evaluate students. What are we looking for? Is this just a test to trick students and make sure they were paying attention? In order to really assess students, we need to believe that our test is worth it, this includes the content, material, and format of the assessment. Although, in order to really assess students in a fair manner, we must meet them where they are and that includes their cultural backgrounds, intellectual abilities and learning styles. The seven learning styles are visual (spatial), aural (auditory), verbal (linguistic), physical (kinesthetic), logical (mathematical), social (interpersonal) and solitary (intrapersonal) (Hoerner, 2017). A quality assessment needs to hit every type of learner, in order to be truly effective. The process of evaluating comes in several formats: pre-assessment, formative assessment, summative assessment and reflection. Over the years, there are several strategies that I have found useful for each type of assessment.
Pre-Assessment
Every student has a different story and experience, anyone in education knows that, but how do we access that information? Sometimes, it’s in the form of a written assessment, usually we give them some version of the post-assessment in order to see what we might be reteaching them during the unit. This pre-assessment process might also tell us who we can handpick to be the group leaders in the classroom during that unit. Allowing students to peer teach provides more time for individualized learning, promotes active learning between students, reinforces the peer teacher’s own learning, helps students become more interactive and comfortable with each other, encourages a more efficient learning environment since students usually understand each other better and teachers have more time for planning future lessons or working one-on-one with more demanding students (Briggs, 2017). Sometimes prior knowledge can be reached by testing through other formats. The brainstorming process is a personal favorite because students get the chance to get out of their seats and write on the board (Alber, 2011). This starts with the teacher writing on the board, a word like “electricity,” then the students come up and write one word that they know involves electricity, like “green,” “ground,” “conductor,” etc. This usually makes it pretty easy to tell which students know the most about the content and which are unsure because the students will be up at the board for several words, or not at all. Pre-assessment evaluations are key when setting up student learning goals, to give students the baseline data of where they currently are and the direction that they need to go to achieve mastery of the standard being taught.
Formative Assessment
Enter and exit slips, Poll Everywhere, Quizlet, dipsticks, interviews, muddiest points, collages and self-assessments are among my favorite kinds of formative assessments (Thomas, 2019). Enter/Exit slips provide a quick and easy check for students to see where they are. It’s so easy to ask students a quick question at the beginning of class in order to get them thinking about your content. Usually, these are called ‘bell ringers’ and they are extremely beneficial because they give teachers a chance to grade and get absent students caught up. They also give students an opportunity to ‘switch gears’ and transition into the correct content area (Prevent Student Distractions with Bell Ringers: Advancement Courses, 2019). Poll Everywhere is similar to Kahoot!, but it allows for more anonymity and individualization. It indicates to the teacher which students have or have not responded to the check for understanding prompt in real time through Poll Everywhere (Online Tools for Teaching and Learning, n.d.). Quizlet provides an opportunity for students to be able to quiz themselves through a set of notecards that can be made into a multiple choice and matching test. I haven’t ever called them dipsticks, but they are just little check-ins for the students, so the teacher can see where they’re at - similar to checking the oil in your vehicle. Examples of a dipstick would be think-pair-share or writing a quick write about the previous day’s lesson. Student learning goals can quickly be analyzed and redirected at these “checks for understanding” to track progress of the learner.
Summative Assessment
The word summative means a collection of sorts, with a summative assessment, we test our student’s knowledge of the entire unit. Examples of summative assessments are projects, end of unit multiple format tests and essays (Formative and Summative Assessments, 2017). Formative assessments give educators a lot of freedom, but in my opinion, summative assessments give even more. As an educator, you have the opportunity to turn several components from any previous unit into an assessment. My favorite example of a summative assessment is when my students would build a shed at the end of the construction unit. We go through the electrical, plumbing, construction, blueprints and framing units, with formative knowledge and skill based assessments then the end of the unit summative assessment is to take all of the skills from the corresponding units and apply them to the final project of taking a shed from the conceptual to the actual building. Project-based learning promotes higher level thinking skills by implementing real-life skills and providing opportunities for students to add kinesthetic activities into their learning (Kruglaya, 2018). They also get to see the real process of experiments and procedures, rather than just learning about them from a PowerPoint presentation. I’m a firm believer that learning is in the highest stages, according to Bloom’s Taxonomy, when students are taking several different components and joining them to create one large expression of mastery.
Reflection
I believe that reflection is different than assessment, but still some form of evaluation, which is why I would still classify it under assessment. Reflection is taking anything that has been taught in the classroom or assessed and giving deep thought or consideration - critical thinking. This comes in several forms by both the educator and the student. The educator must reflect on the lessons delivered as well as collecting, interpreting and analyzing student data from formative and summative assessments alike. In doing this reflective step in the process educators can determine what worked well and what they may need to recover or combine in the next lessons or units. I feel this step is often overlooked by many professional educators because once a unit is over its on to then next to “get to chapter 23 by state testing dates.” We need to promote and put into place systems for teachers to collaborate and focus on this highly critical piece. From the student perspective we as teachers must sit aside time within our lessons for students to reflect in their learning. These can be incorporated in journaling, bell work, entry and exit tickets. When students can take their learning goals and reflect on where they are in the process can pay off in student achievement. We have to be intentional about promoting this time and then having the conversations with our students on how we help them towards their goals.
References:
Alber, R. (2011, July 19). Are You Tapping into Prior Knowledge Often Enough in Your Classroom? Retrieved July 04, 2020, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/prior- knowledge-tapping-into-often-classroom-rebecca-alber
Briggs, S. (2017, March 24). How Peer Teaching Improves Student Learning and 10 Ways To Encourage It. Retrieved July 04, 2020, from
https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/peer-teaching/
Hoerner, N. (2017, August 03). The Seven Learning Styles - How do you learn? Retrieved July
04, 2020, from https://www.inspireeducation.net.au/blog/the-seven-learning-styles/
Online Tools for Teaching & Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved July 04, 2020, from
https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/assessment-centered-tools/poll- everywhere/
Prevent Student Distractions with Bell Ringers: Advancement Courses. (2019, July 19).
Retrieved July 04, 2020, from https://blog.advancementcourses.com/classroom-
activities/student-distractions-bell-ringers/
Thomas, L. (2019, April 26). 7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment. Retrieved July 04, 2020, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-smart-fast-ways-do- formative-assessment