My biggest learnings about assessments (so far) are:
1) Writing summative assessments early in the process of unit planning is extremely helpful in "proofing" the intended targets. By designing the tasks that students will do to show mastery, it forces me to consider what it looks like to meet the target.
2) Assessments need to be engaging. It turns out that I just gave a summative assessment earlier today. It was a pleasure to see the students engaging in the task and seemingly forgetting at times that it was "the big end of unit test." When students stay after not to argue why they didn't get a point here or lost credit there, rather something new they discovered while completing the task, that is a joy.
3) Students need feedback. In The Art Of Changing The Brain, I was struck by the passage, "If the learner has given you her own ideas, it is a valuable gift. She has engaged you in her learning, and there is great potential for growth in her understanding. You, the teacher, have become important." We need to provide opportunities for students to explore and be active learners. When they then seize those opportunities, our feedback goes from being a note at the top of an essay that gets tossed in the recycling bin to something powerful and meaningful.
4) Feedback needs to be timely. This is an area that I need to focus on. There's nothing worse than looking at work a student did too long ago and finding an important clue that would have helped their understanding at the time.
Here's an example of feedback on the formative assessment from my first unit. Based on this formative assessment, I formed groups by readiness level for a project that we did. I was pleased with this decision, because the students challenged one another at appropriate levels (without one student dominating) and I was able to better meet the needs of each group. Here is the summative assessment for the unit
For the summative assessment in the second unit, I placed the targets above the items assessing them, which I think helps the students see what they need to demonstrate. The formative assessment for the unit had students sending me emails and calendar events, which was an interesting and different way for me to assess their understanding of Google scripts.
1) Writing summative assessments early in the process of unit planning is extremely helpful in "proofing" the intended targets. By designing the tasks that students will do to show mastery, it forces me to consider what it looks like to meet the target.
2) Assessments need to be engaging. It turns out that I just gave a summative assessment earlier today. It was a pleasure to see the students engaging in the task and seemingly forgetting at times that it was "the big end of unit test." When students stay after not to argue why they didn't get a point here or lost credit there, rather something new they discovered while completing the task, that is a joy.
3) Students need feedback. In The Art Of Changing The Brain, I was struck by the passage, "If the learner has given you her own ideas, it is a valuable gift. She has engaged you in her learning, and there is great potential for growth in her understanding. You, the teacher, have become important." We need to provide opportunities for students to explore and be active learners. When they then seize those opportunities, our feedback goes from being a note at the top of an essay that gets tossed in the recycling bin to something powerful and meaningful.
4) Feedback needs to be timely. This is an area that I need to focus on. There's nothing worse than looking at work a student did too long ago and finding an important clue that would have helped their understanding at the time.
Here's an example of feedback on the formative assessment from my first unit. Based on this formative assessment, I formed groups by readiness level for a project that we did. I was pleased with this decision, because the students challenged one another at appropriate levels (without one student dominating) and I was able to better meet the needs of each group. Here is the summative assessment for the unit
For the summative assessment in the second unit, I placed the targets above the items assessing them, which I think helps the students see what they need to demonstrate. The formative assessment for the unit had students sending me emails and calendar events, which was an interesting and different way for me to assess their understanding of Google scripts.