Assessment

 Sorry there were no warm-ups posted over the weekend but I got stuck in a town for a few days waiting for the weather to clear up enough to fly home.  I managed it but the next day the weather got bad again.  So while waiting for the weather to clear, I wasn't able to do much.

Now on to today's information.  When looking at assessments, its important to decide what the assessment is for.  Lets look into the four different types of assessment designed to improve learning.

Assessment should make learning better while supporting good instructional technique.  In other words, instruction and assessment should support each other.

First off, assessment can help the student determine what is more important to learn.  This means, students should be assessed on specific topics. For instance if they are learning about greatest common factors, they should be assessed on that topic.  If they have been learning to use greatest common factors to simplify fractions, that is what they should be assessed on.

This type of assessment is not only teacher driven, it can be used by students to help them assess themselves.  Furthermore, it has been discovered that learning is really restructuring prior knowledge rather than adding to it so assessments can be developed to help improve learning.

Second, students must be able to construct new knowledge from previously learned materials and the proper assessment can help with that.  One way to do that is through assessment tasks which are similar to learning tasks with data analysis, making connections, and making contrasts.  Large groups are often optimal for learning and assessments designed for whole group must reflect that.  Group work is a very real life situation because many businesses have groups find solutions to problems.

Third, if students have been learning mathematics using tools such as graphing calculators they need to be assessed while using them, otherwise the final picture is incomplete.  Furthermore, many of the standardized tests require students to use certain tools so if they do not know how to use these tools, they are at a disadvantage.

Finally, students need to be assessed on more than the usual automated tasks.  They need to be assessed on how well they've connected with the current topic, how well they can see how things connect even with superficial differences, the ability to use the appropriate process, and their own understanding of the material.

Tomorrow we'll look at a different idea on grading tests which I recently read about.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.