Week 8, Blog 2 - Assessment

The article is from the following site: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-assessment-ten-lessons-get-started.

With assessment being such an important and vital aspect within teaching, the Edutopia Staff provided ten key elements that comprise quality authentic assessment.  I’d like to focus on a few of these components in depth.

According to the article, one of the key aspects of authentic assessment is to use a rubric.  I completely agree.  By providing students with a rubric, they have an understanding of the expectations that they need to meet.  Furthermore, when they get their assessment back, they will be able to see exactly where they need to improve and where they did very well.  Rubrics have to be designed smartly so that students know exactly what is needed.  In my school, we’ve really focused on developed high-quality rubrics so that our assessments are more valid and stronger.

Another concept found within the article was the idea that teachers have to think backward.  In other words, we have to begin our planning with the summative assessment in mind.  After creating the summative assessment (the main point of the entire unit), teachers can then go through and create formative assessments that can help shape student understanding of the material.  The formative assessment is meant to shape the students’ understanding of the material so that they can do well on the summative assessment, thus showing mastery of the learning targets.

One other interesting idea posited by the article was that students should be given assessments on demand.  After a lesson, for example, on the following day, teachers should ask students to write a response in correlation with what had just been learned.  I often do this and it is effective.  First, I can gauge how well students are learning.  Second, I can understand where students were erroneous in their thinking.  From there, I can re-teach the material so that students can have misunderstandings clarified.

The article also suggested that teachers provide students with the opportunity to assess themselves.  This is very important that teachers provide students with the opportunity to reflect on their own learning.  This will help students learn to reflect so that they will know how they’ve grown and also understand where they need to continue to improve.  Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses is very important in learning, and it is more valuable coming from yourself than from somebody else (i.e. your teacher).

One of the interesting ideas that the Edutopia staff suggested was for teachers to work together and collaborate on material.  I couldn’t agree more.  I am fortunate to work at a school where my colleagues and I are able to work together to create materials that we’re very proud of.  Of course, we are never satisfied and we constantly strive to improve our lessons, plans, and assessments.

As you can see, there are numerous characteristics that are involved in authentic assessment.  We as teachers have the awesome responsibility of creating assessments that will ensure growth within our students.  We have to continue to work hard at creating quality assessments in order to best prepare our students for the demands of the future.

Edutopia Staff.   “Ten Takeaway Tips for Using Authentic Assessment in Your School.”  No Date.  Web.  Edutopia.  7 Aug. 2011.  < http://www.edutopia.org/stw-assessment-ten-lessons-get-started >.