Personal Assessment Philosophy
For several years, I have set out to find my destiny. I have found an adventure leading me to my purpose in life. I have always had an interest in knowledge and learning. It became clear recently that I could continue this interest by teaching. Teaching is not just a job that involves giving students homework and grades. It involves having a well-designed assessment that can encourage motivation and achievement with students. Assessments are an essential part to effective teaching and the learning process for students. These can be aligned with learning objectives that are identified on specific lesson/unit plans.
Authentic assessments should be linked with Cognitively Based Assessment FOR/AS/OF Learning (Navas, 2014). CBAL helps combine summative (of learning) and formative (for learning) components of assessment by working with innovative tasks that are viewed by teachers and students for learning experiences in and of themselves (as learning) by being delivered primarily by technology (Navas, 2014). These assessments provide students with opportunities to learn in real contexts (Mueller, 2014). Students will learn how to handle real-life situations as each student experiences a form of scaffolding through feedback. A variety of assessments will be used for diverse learning opportunities for students with different learning styles. “Each assessment should link to instructional objectives (Risko & Walker-Dalhouse, 2010).” My goal is develop a plan that focuses on the elements of formative assessment, learning targets, rubrics, student self-assessment, emphasis on descriptive feedback, and grading with the use of clarity and accuracy (Mueller, 2014).
Authentic assessments are especially important in STEM and the Common Core. I have the opportunity to support students in meeting the Common Core needs by creating more authentic reading and writing tasks (Miller, 2013). I will consider having students create assessments and products that involve work from the real work like letters, blogs, infographics, press releases, guides, and podcasts (Miller, 2013). Students will be provided with more primary sources to read to help create reading engagement within my classroom. As a STEM educator, students will be provided an opportunity to have a space to practice various roles in real life situations with science. The Common Core emphasizes a speaking and listening standard. Assessments and the Common Core are aligned to encourage growth and a deeper understanding of the material as shown on the example below.. Students will tackle real-world challenges and problems in teams with building collaborative skills (Miller, 2013). Authentic assessment meets the needs of Common Core by creating collaboration for real-world scenarios, challenges, and problems.
There are three major categories of assessment: Formative, summative and norm-referenced. Formative assessment is the “heart” of assessment since it is used to monitor student progress during lessons and units. It helps drive instruction, identify strengths or weaknesses, and creates an environment of differentiated instruction for each student by providing feedback to the student and instructor. Summative assessment is used to analyze whether or not learning goals were met by comparing student performance with the goals or standards designed for the unit. A norm-referenced assessment is used to compare student results with the set of “norm.” Depending on the goal of assessment will help determine what form of assessment to use.
The basis of my assessment plan is formative assessment, which is a form of assessment for learning. As I teach in the classroom, I will use the formative assessment to check for student understanding, adjust my instruction accordingly, and provide feedback to students (Stiggins, 2006). “Formative assessment can lead to significant learning gains (Price, 2012).” Formative assessments are often informal and continuous. student thinking and feedback are key aspects of formative assessments (Price, 2012). The instructor has the opportunity to draw on his or her pedagogical content knowledge to recognize and respond to students’ thinking (Price, 2012). “The assessments can reinforce instruction that is increasingly rich, complex, and full of meaning and enhance lessons that offer authentic tasks with a variety of routes to success (Oakes & Lipton, 2007).”A number of strategies is used like a reflection journal, graphic organizers, class discussions, exit tickets, one sentence summaries, and probing questions. Formative assessments are used to inform teaching, promote learning, and encourage success for students.
Another piece to my assessment plan is learning targets. Learning targets have clear statements that are simple for the intent of learning that can be posted in the classroom every day. These learning targets identify specific skills that I intend to teach by beginning with “I can.” Learning targets are used to help me think about my instruction and classroom activities to provide an idea of what my students are expected to learn.
Rubrics provide me with information to the students on how he or she is being assessed. It is my responsibility to create rubrics that are fair and clear to understand (Mueller, 2014). I will utilize internal and external resources to create a rubric that everyone can use. Achievement levels are defined on the rubric, explain the differences on the quality of work, and provide samples that illustrate the different levels and traits. Students will be provided with the assessment rubrics at the beginning of an instructional unit so he or she can utilize this throughout the unit to evaluate their quality of work.
Student self-assessments provide students with the ability to identify their own strengths and weaknesses. It also allows the students to set their goals for learning. This helps students take more initiative in their own educational experiences. Students will be taught to communicate about their learning through conferences and self-reflecting writing activities.
Descriptive feedback is the opportunity for me to provide the strengths and weaknesses of the students’ work (Miller, 2013). I will provide the students with information regarding the areas of learning they are doing well in and where improvement is needed. The work will be evaluated before a final grade is assigned. I plan to model the thinking that I would like my students to use when they perform their own self-assessment.
I understand the importance of summative assessments that evaluate students to determine if learning has occurred. The scores of summative assessments help inform policy makers, but have limited value in practical instructional settings since it lacks informing classroom instruction and learning (Navas, 2014). It is extremely important to parents, school personnel, and college admission officers (School Improvement Network, 2011). In order to create a summative assessment that provides information on assigned grades and student achievement, I need to begin developing a plan at the beginning of the semester. I also need to be careful to record information from the assessments as they are given. Homework grades are part of the students’ learning so I will be scoring this as 10 percent of their final grade in order to encourage the students to continue doing it. A majority of their final grade will be based off the assignments provided at the end of the semester. Grades will present information on academic achievement of the student. Attendance, homework, turning in assignments on time, group participation, labs, and behavior will be discussed separately.
Educational assessments include important instructional elements. “Fundamental to all of these assessment practices is that teachers see all students as extraordinary capable learners (Oakes & Lipton, 2007). ” Assessments will be used to help each student develop creative, critical thinking and decision-making skills that are valuable for their future (Mueller, 2014). Each assessment will be carefully created to guide and support my students as they acquire knowledge and learn skills that are important for their holistic formation. I feel it is important for parents to be educated on how to interpret data and understand the types of assessments being used. Students will be able to apply and practice skills through authentic tasks. My students will be given learning opportunities to excel in class and engage in critical reflection to become more active in understanding, reflecting and monitoring their own learning. My assessments will be designed based on learning goals and intended outcome (School Improvement Network, 2011). Using Evidence-Centered Design (ECD) process helps develop and interpret assessments. It is viewed as a way of formalizing the test design process, which is related to the validity of the test scores (Navas, 2014). A Cognitive Diagnostic Model helps guide test design and analysis with providing diagnostic information about students’ strengths and weaknesses to encourage tailored instruction or for remediation purposes (Navas, 2014). I feel that I need to emphasize educational equity in my classroom to promote the importance of career and life for the student after he or she completes his or her education (School Improvement Network, 2011).
A table that provides examples of different activities that can be used to assess different types of learning objectives to help analyze or measure performance for useful feedback for teaching and learning (Carnegie Mellon, 2015):
Type of Learning Objective
|
Examples of Types of Assessment
|
How to Measure
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Remember
Students will be able to:
|
|
|
Understand
Students will be able to:
|
Papers, oral/written exam questions, problems, class discussions, concept maps, homework assignments that require (oral or written):
|
Scoring or performance rubrics that identify critical components of the work and discriminates between differing levels of proficiency in addressing the components
|
Apply
Students will be able to:
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Activities that require students to use procedures to solve or complete familiar or unfamiliar tasks; may also require students to determine which procedure(s) are most appropriate for a given task. Activities include:
Problem sets, performances, labs, Prototyping, Simulations
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Accuracy scores, Check lists, Rubrics, Primary Trait Analysis
|
Analyze
Students will be able to:
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Activities that require students to discriminate or select relevant from irrelevant parts, determine how elements function together, or determine bias, values or underlying intent in presented materials. These might include:
Case studies, Critiques, Labs, Papers, Projects, Debates, Concept Maps,
|
|
Evaluate
Students will be able to:
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A range of activities that require students to test, monitor, judge or critique readings, performances, or products against established criteria or standards. These activities might include:
Journals, Diaries, Critiques, Problem Sets, Product Reviews, Case Studies.
|
|
Create
Students will be able to:
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Research projects, musical compositions, performances, essays, business plans, website designs, prototyping, set designs
|
|
Work Cited
Align Assessments with Objectives. (2015, June 1). Retrieved July 1, 2015, from http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/howto/basics/objectives.html
Miller, A (2013, November 13). Authenticity to Support Common Core Instruction and
Assessment- Whole Child Education. Retrieved May 31, 2015, from http://www.wholechildeducation.org/blog/authenticity-to-support-common-core-instruction-and-assessment
Mueller, J. (2014). What is Authentic Assessment? (Authentic Assessment Toolbox). Retrieved
May 31, 2015, from http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm
Navas, M. J. (2014). Bringing added value to educational assessment: A shift from an audit
mode of assessment to an assistence mode. Psicologia Educativa, 20(2), 61-63. doi:10.1016/j.pse.2014.11.005
Oakes, J., & Lipton, M. (2007). Teaching to Change the World. New York: McGraw Hill.
Price, E. (2012). Complex interactions between formative assessment, technology, and
classroom practices. AIP Conference Proceedings, 1413(1), 59-62. doi:10.1063/1.3679993
Risko, V. J., & Walker-Dalhouse, D. (2010). Making the Most of Assessment to Inform
Instruction. The Reading Teacher , 420-422.
Skills vs. Assessments: The Heart of Common Core. (2011, October 21). Retrieved May 31,
Stiggins, R., Arter, J., Chappuis, J., & Chappuis, S. (2006). Classroom Assessment for
Student Learning.Princeton: Educational Testing Service.
Strauss, V. (2015, January 22). What the new Common Core tests are — and aren’t.
Retrieved July 1, 2015, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/01/22/what-the-new-common-core-tests-are-and-arent/
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