Think-Pair-Share: The students will be asked to think about a time where they experienced a situation such as one that was discussed in a story being read in class. They will start by thinking of this event on their own, then will be paired with a peer to compare and contrast thoughts about the question. Lastly, each pair of students will share with the others what thoughts they came up with and explain how they related to the story.

Higher Order Questioning: Students are given a series of questions about particular inventions (such as the cotton gin) that changed the world and will be asked why and how they were significant to modern life.

BOY: Beginning of the year assessments contain key information that is covered throughout the coming school year. This assessment gives an idea into the student’s understanding of the material to come and can determine readiness.

STAAR: A state standardized test created for schools within the state of Texas to determine the academic mastery of a particular subject in respect to the grade level of the student. The exam is taken from third grade through 12th grade

End of a unit exam: These exams are created using all the relevant material covered over the course of the unit. Typically administered at the end of the six week period or given as a mid-term. The questions presented are strategically worded to

Final projects: Project based assessments are designed to eliminate the use of traditional multiple choice and written exams. They can also be beneficial to students because they offer a intuitive way to display mastery of subject matter though a unique and creative way.

PAST Assessment: The Phonological Awareness Skills Test is an assessment that is verbally administered and designed to identify the student’s ability to recognize and appropriately decode words and sentences.

Pre-Assessments for a unit: This is an anticipation based assessment that uses multiple strategies to determine student readiness for the content that is about to be instructed throughout the course of the unit.

Portfolio: An evaluation of a student’s work thus far and what they have achieved throughout their educational journey. These portfolios can contain the student’s highlights in mastery, works in progress and areas that still require extra attention.

Essay: For an Essay style performance assessment, the teacher can give a prompt that outlines very specific areas that need to be explained in detail, whatever they may be. This will determine the amount of higher level thinking the student puts forward into the essay to showcase their comprehension of the material.