The Assessment standard holds teachers accountable for producing opportunities to collect quality data on student progress and accomplishments. The teacher utilizes technology to organize data collected to be shared and used in collaborations with other teachers, such as Special Education teachers and Reading Specialists. Teachers use different assessment methods to engage their students and encourage students to be active in their learning and academic growth. Teachers use assessments to monitor student progress and use data to modify instruction to cater to students’ needs.
Giving students a pre-test and post-test to start and end a unit will help teachers assess prior knowledge, what to include in a unit, and how effective their instruction was. Utilizing technology to collect and organize data is the most efficient way a teacher can collect data. In addition, a teacher can easily organize, display, and share data with other teachers and students through technology.
Formative Assessment
Formative assessments can come in many forms, such as comprehension questions during a lesson, using an engaging hands-on activity, or a digital interactive graphic organizer like the one pictured. When creating instruction, I include at least one formative assessment every day of my unit. The graphic organizer pictured is an interactive formative assessment of place value with decimals I created during my time student teaching. Having a daily formative assessment like this one helps me keep track of my student’s progress with the current subject. If I see a student struggling with specific concepts, I can include additional review times in my future days of the unit plan. In addition, formative assessments make it easy to collect data. This data can be used to create modifications to teacher instruction, or teachers can use the data to justify an IEP/504 for students in need.
Summative Assessment
Summative assessments are a more formal way to collect student data and are in a traditional test form. Though students tend to have anxiety with traditional tests, the teacher’s responsibility is to ensure all learners are prepared for test-taking. In addition, a pre-unit test gives the teacher baseline data and the amount of prior knowledge students have regarding the curriculum. Teachers can create instruction that caters to their students’ needs using the baseline data from unit pre-tests. Post-unit tests give teachers data on how effective their instruction was and what continued support students need. Summative assessments can also be weekly spelling and word pattern tests. These weekly tests will help students prepare for higher-stake exams and give examples of testing behavior expectations.
Using Technology: Instant Feedback and Organization
The beauty of digital summative assessments is the instant feedback students can receive. Students can instantly see their test scores and the correct answers to their tests and teacher comments. This feedback helps students take responsibility for their academic growth. In addition, teachers can collect data with ease and share this data with other paraprofessionals and parents/adults. Data from summative assessments can help determine a student’s curriculum comprehension. Teachers can easily organize the data and illustrate student growth or areas students need support.
