Assessment

A student gives a presentation to the class.

Assessing student work is an important aspect of teaching. The data collected allows teachers to determine if students have mastered specific content, as well as determine if students are performing at their grade level. Additionally,  it is important for teachers to give constructive and frequent feedback on assessments in order for students to repeat and build upon their successes.

Professional Practice Standard 4: Assessment of and for Learning

Formative

Meeting with a student to answer specific questions about an assignment.

During class activities, I would meet with each student to discuss questions they might have about the assignment. In whole-group discussions, students would respond to to questions about a test or assignment either verbally, or by writing down their answers.

Additionally, students were given a study guide for each unit taught. The study guide functioned as a means to assess students’ content knowledge before  the summative assessment, and was designed to meet the unique learning needs and abilities of the students. In this way, every student had the opportunity to pass the test.

Summative

A student received a high grade on a unit test.

At the end of every unit, students would be given a summative assessment on the content they had learned. During the course of my student teaching, I redesigned the unit tests in order to ensure that questions were comprehensible, fair, and covered material that had been discussed in class.