Assessment is the focus of enhancing your student's learning. To do this effectively, you need to use a variety of strategies to offer a balance of learning approaches to your students. We all know that each student learns in a variety of ways, so logically we should be using a variety of assessment strategies to meet the needs of our learners. What does assessment accomplish in the classroom? First, assessment provides the students and the teacher with the progress information of the student's learning. Assessment also indicates to the teacher, whether or not the student is benefiting from the teacher's instructional strategies. Assessment also provides concrete evidence for future lesson plans. For example, assessment verifies whether or not the student need additional support and how the teacher needs to teach the next lessons. When we are assessing, we not only assess the knowledge of the outcomes, but we need to assess the skills and attitudes that compliment the knowledge prescribed in the outcomes. Knowledge taught needs to be taught with skills and attitudes so that the student can apply the knowledge and concepts. Assessment practices are subjective; therefore, it is critical to build both formative and summative assessment into the lessons. Making the assessment authentic takes practice and planning. Criterion referenced assessment is an excellent example of fair and authentic assessment, as it aligns with the curriculum requirements and it engages students to complete more complex learning tasks. The most important assessment comes before the teaching. This assessment gives teachers a benchmark of where their students are and where they need to start with the curriculum. Formative feedback also creates meaningful dialogues between the students and the teacher. Students learning become more meaningful for the students when they have a connection to their teacher. Formative feedback can come in various forms, such as questioning, daily classroom talk, conferencing, idea maps, drawings, diagrams and journals. These types of feedback are more personal, and allow for a deeper level of learning with less parameters than teacher generated paper and pencil tests. Reference: Gustafson, B.J. & MacDonald, D.A.G. (2013). A Conceptual Approach to Teaching Children About Science, Technology, and Society (2nd Ed.). Ripon Publishing. Print.
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Lorie PennerA scientist can be anyone, as long as you as you are curious enough to want to know why! Archives
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