Being articulate about current issues
in assessment is important--what are your beliefs? Assessment questions
you should address in your classes and in your field experiences
include:
How do I foster student creativity and
achievement?
How will I
grade students? What will count? How much?
How
will I ensure I am fair?
How many chances so I want to give
students to complete their work?
What if students don't do their
homework?
How will I modify assignments so students
can be successful?
How will I communicate how students are
doing in classes with families?
In classes, as you develop lessons and units, you will be asked to
think of different strategies to find out what your students have
learned from the material or the experience. In the beginning, random
questions of the group, quizzes, games, word searches, jot notes, mini
demos, and learning logs are useful for informally assessing lessons.
Summaries may be strategies you call on to check
out student learning from a lesson. For example, the
3, 2,1 Strategy, in which a teacher asks students to list 3 main
ideas they learned, 2 insights or applications, and 1 question that
they have is one some teachers employ. You can vary this strategy for
your own purposes: in social studies, 3 events, 2 important people,
and 1 action if done differently would alter the course of history; in
literature, identify 3 memorable characters, describe 2 themes, and 1
scene you liked.
As a professional teacher, you will want to have
the knowledge and skills to develop an array of assessment vehicles that you can
use in your future teaching, including selected response tests, essay
questions, performance-based tasks, portfolios, exhibitions,
affective measures. Rubrics,
checklists and rating scales are tools you will use to assess the
quality of student products and performances.
Assessment Samples: Created by
SHU preservice teacher education students
Selected Response
Interpretive Exercises
Simplified
Test Directions
Essay Questions
Performance-Based Tasks
Portfolio Plans
Exhibitions
Affective Measures
