Johanna Busch
Assessment
InTASC Standard 6: The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learner’s decision making.
Introduction
Assessments are used to communicate mastery to students, parents, and teachers. Assessment results allow teachers to adjust instruction to better support student needs. Engaging students in assessments can also help increase student motivation to succeed. Diagnostic assessments are taken before a skill is learned to plan for instruction. Formative assessments demonstrate student misconceptions while skills are still being learned. This allows for quick adjustments to increase student mastery. Summative assessments, such as unit tests and quizzes, allow teachers to identify both students who have mastered material over longer periods of time and students who need more support. Standardized assessments, such as I-Ready, are used to set long term, individual goals and then monitor progress throughout the year. Assessment results are used to provide students with targeted support to help them achieve these goals. Tracking progress towards these goals engages students in their own growth.
Students are assessed in a variety of ways every day in my classroom. The data from these assessments informs students, parents, and me. I use this data to differentiate and better calibrate my instruction to my students' needs. Click the links below to see how I use math assessment and I-Ready in my classroom.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I use diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments to monitor student progress, engage students in their own growth, and guide instructional decisions in my classrooms. This section showed how I use all three types of assessment in math. Diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments are used on a daily basis to monitor student progress and help me make instructional decisions. Students are engaged in their own growth through feedback on these assessments. Students' longer term growth is assessed using the I-Ready reading and math assessments. These assessments allow me to monitor students' progress towards long term goals and plan differentiated instruction during small group math time. Both math assessment and I-Ready help my students and I figure out what we need to do to help them achieve their goals.