In a Nutshell

In the end, quality assessment requires us to use multiple authentic strategies to assess a variety of skills over a period of time in a caring and safe risk-taking environment. As professionals our evaluation of student learning is supported by the knowledge and skills that our students present to us again and again. Our assessments are guided by the data that we collect which supports our professional judgement. We can stand behind our decisions with confidence knowing that the decisions we make are in the best interest of our students and their futures.

Home Connections

When a report card goes home there should be no surprises (at least, ideally). Regular contact between teacher and parents/guardians is crucial so that everyone is clear about where the class is at, what the learning goals are, and what the class is doing to meet them. I've found that parent newsletters are a great way to keep our students' families in the loop. During my last long term placement I sent one home every 1-2 weeks.

Below is a sample parent newsletter about assessment that I completed for a previous course.

Cool Assessment Activity: Portfolio

Good For: summative assessment

Portfolios of student work are a great way to show a students' progression over time. Portfolios may include samples of student stories, poems, letters, journal entries, lists, responses to literature, book reviews, drawing, mid maps/graphic organizers, worksheets, etc. You may also want to allow your students to select what they think is their "best work" to include.

Mirror Mirror

In one of my previous posts (Why Assess? Thursday, May 10)  I mentioned how quality assessment can guide our planning and instruction and ultimately make us better teachers.

Below is the link to a video from Teacher Tube that explains how this works:

Comprehension Assessment that Informs Instruction (Making Meaning®)


*www.teachertube.com is a great resource for planning, instruction, and assessment ideas for all teachers.

Are You Sure?

If you assign a student a mark you must be prepared to defend that mark. The best way to do this is to collect data, data, and more data. This data includes the information that you've collected on a student since the beginning of a learning unit (or year). Your anecdotal notes, checklists, samples of student work, exit card answers, photographs, test/quiz scores should help you make an informed decision about what a student knows and can do.

Still not sure what mark to give a student? Talk with someone. As a teacher in a school you are part of a education team. Discuss your thoughts with another teacher, the school's literacy support, or the principal.

I try to keep in mind that saying "It takes a village to raise a child."  It's so true.

Seeing the Humour In It

It seems that Google has a lighthearted approach to tests and assessments. Cartoons kept popping up  while I was searching for assessment information. Here are a few gems that I've come across.


"English - Who needs that? I'm never going to England!"
- Dan Castellaneta -

Cool Assessment Activity: Surveys

Good For: Diagnostic Assessment

At the start of the school year a great way to get to know your students is by using a survey. Survey questions may be asked during a student-teacher conference (especially for very young students) or may be filled out as a questionnaire by students at home.

Some good general questions for the start of the year might be:

• Do you usually like school? Why or why not?
• What is your favourite subject(s)?
• What makes a great teacher?
• Is there something that you'd like to do better with or work harder on this year?
• What's one more important thing I should know about you?

More specific questions may be asked during a survey at the beginning of a unit of study. At this time the teacher may want to ask questions directly related to the upcoming unit such as...What are two important things to remember about multiplication? Solve this equation (8x7)? Can you explain how you solved this?

This relates back to getting to know our students as individuals (see Who Are We Here For? - Thursday, May 10).

Cool Assessment Activity: Exit Cards

Good For: quick formative, summative, and student self-assessment

What are they?
Exit cards are a quick assessment tool for teachers to help them become more aware of student understanding of concepts taught. Exit cards are written student responses to questions posed at the end of a class or learning activity. They may be used at any grade level and every subject area.

How long does this exit card take to complete?
Exit cards take about five minutes to complete and reveal important information about student understanding.

When should exit cards be used?
Exit cards may be used as part of ongoing assessment and may be used in daily routines or lessons as a closing activity.

Intermediate Level Example:
http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/133/136350/exitcard.pdf


Exit cards may also be used for student self-reflection and assessment. This type of exit card could look something like this...

Student Self-Assessment Template

What I did well.	Why I did well.
What I can improve.	How I can improve.

That's fast. But not fast enough!

Ok, so yes, it's a Mountain Dew commercial. But it includes all three types of assessment and it's funny.

*The teacher in the video may want to look into some PD on providing detailed feedback.

Meat and Potatoes

There is some new jargon being thrown around regarding assessment types and purposes. Despite the confusing terminology you'll notice some familiar concepts.

Previously Known As: Diagnostic Assessment
Details: This type of assessment provides information about a student’s knowledge and skills before learning takes place (usually at the beginning of the school year or unit of study).
Examples: performance tasks, surveys/questionnaires, KWL charts, graphic organizers, conferences

Previously Known As: Formative Assessment
Details: This type of assessment usually consists of a series of assessments of a student’s skills and knowledge as learning is taking place. This type of assessment provides teachers with valuable feedback on the success of the lesson as it progresses. Teachers are also able to provide immediate feedback to students to keep them motivated and to guide their learning.
Examples: anecdotal notes/observations, checklists, exit cards, peer/self-assessments, discussion, journal entries

Previously Known As: Summative Assessment
Details: This type of assessment takes place at the end of a learning unit. Used together with diagnostic and formative assessment, summative evaluations provide information about a student’s progress over time.
Examples: performance tasks, projects, presentations, written tests, portfolios

Why Assess?

Well, because we have to. But what do we get out of it? Well, here are some things to think about.

Quality Assessment:

• tells us about our students' interests and hobbies,
• allows students to demonstrate what they can do,
• allows students to relate what they know,
• provides opportunities for students to develop their self-monitoring and self-regulation skills,
• guides our planning and instruction and ultimately helps us become better teachers.

Cool Assessment Activity: Word Fishing

Good For: Kindergarten/Grade One summative assessment of high frequency words

I had an LTO in a kindergarten class last year and I was looking for an engaging way to evaluate students’ knowledge of high frequency words. I transformed the water centre into a “fishing hole”. Students used their “fishing rods” (bamboo rods and string with magnets on the end) to catch fish. Each fish had a high frequency word written on its side. When students caught a fish I asked them to read the word out loud and then identify and stamp with a bingo dauber the same word on a worksheet.

I was just hoping to have an exciting way to assess popcorn words but students kept asking to “go fishing” after their assessment. It turned into a full-fledged centre that I kept open for almost the next month. After the first couple of days of this I was surprised and pleased to see that students had started to form fishing “teams” where one person would catch a fish and then call out the word to their partner who would find the word on the worksheet and stamp it. The students had turned my assessment activity into an even better learning tool than I thought possible.

Assessment...ugh

Let's think back for a minute. Waaaayyyy back to elementary school. What did assessment mean? If your school experience was anything like mine it probably meant...

...fear, panic, dread. Few things struck terror into me as immediately and overwhelmingly as the word "test".

The funny thing was, I was an alright student. I knew my stuff. So why all the fear and the anxiety? One word:

I've never performed well under pressure (even now). So why do we feel it's ok now to subject our own students to this type of testing? Maybe I'm being a little dramatic but I've made my point. Assessment that relys only on high stakes summative tasks is not effective (how I ever got through high school, I'll never know).

This blog will be a practical resource for effective assessment in the classroom. From types of assessment, to professional obligations and expectations, to tools and activities that you can use in your classroom. My goal here is to take the stress and anxiety, for both us and our students, out of assessment (yes, it can be done).

Who Are We Here For?

The image above is a word cloud created in Tagxedo from the introduction to Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools (2010).   Some of the dominant words that pop up are not surprising. Policy and boards compete for our attention with schools and students. This is representative of the factors that as a new teacher will compete for your time and attention with regard to assessment.

It is crucial for us to keep in mind why we are here and who we are here for...our students. Though there are certain policies we must respect and follow, this blog will provide some practical ways to do so that also keeps the best interests of our students in mind.

Note: For those unfamiliar, Tagxedo allows users to create word "clouds" or formations using a selection of text. The frequency of certain words in the text selection determines their size in the cloud. Arguably, size identifies the dominant themes in a selection of text.

http://www.tagxedo.com/

Try it out!

I Feel So Tech Savvy

Wow and wow. I'm stunned by how easy it is to get a blog started. Somehow in my mind I made this much more complicated than it needed to be. I must say that I'm also a little frightened by how easily I could do this. When I was ten, being "high-tech" meant your family had a VHS player.

Yeah. That's the one.