Assessment

Assessment

What is your definition of assessment? How do you determine lesson objectives on which an assessment is based?

Saeed, et al. (2018) stated that assessments should guide instruction. Assessments are crucial when gauging student understanding of concepts. Assessments change throughout a student’s academic career. As a kindergarten teacher, most of my assessments were given one on one through conversation or by observations. Now, as a second-grade teacher, my assessment practices have changed. I still make notes on what I observe students doing, but now have a grade book to keep the student's scores.

When students take an assessment, the assessment is graded and analyzed by me. I then take notes on how each student performed and look for ways to group students for small group instruction based on their understanding of the material on the test. Differentiation and extension groups come from this analysis as well as the plan made to teach new content.

Learning objectives are created as statements that are specific and measurable and project the expected goal of a lesson, unit, or standard (Harvard, 2020). These learning objectives should drive instruction. In order for this to occur, the standard needs to be unpacked to understand what the learning expectation entails. Then, assessments can be created and lessons can be planned to ensure the learning objective is met.  

 

Harvard University. (2020). On learning goals and learning objectives. https://bokcenter.harvard.edu/learning-goals-and-learning-objectives

Saeed., M., Tahir, H., & Latif, I. (2018). Teachers' perceptions about the use of classroom assessment techniques in elementary and secondary schools. Bulletin of Education & Research, 40(1), 115-130.