Different Types of Assessment
Performance assessment-Xiaowei
Diagnostic assessment-Xiaowei
Formative assessment
What diagnostic assessment is:
A diagnostic assessment is a tool teachers can use to collect information about a student’s strengths and weaknesses in a skill area. These assessments can be formal (e.g., standardized achievement test) or informal (e.g., work samples).
Why it is used:
Not every student will enter in school with a same level, it can identify student gaps to guide future instructions.
A diagnostic assessment can help teachers to answer questions such as:
Why is the student not responding?
What type of change needs to be made to the intervention?
Examples：
Textbook pre-course test
e.g. At the beginning of a unit on Ancient Greece, a teacher may give a pre-test to determine if the class knows the basic geography, history or culture. The class’ responses will determine where the teacher begins and how much time is dedicated to certain topics. The teacher may learn from this diagnostic assessment that many students already have knowledge on cultural aspects of Greece, but know little about its history. From this, they may adjust the lesson plan to spend a bit more time on the history and origins of Ancient Greece and slightly less on culture.
Diagonstic Reading Assesment(DAR)
Senario: Error Analysis
Boy writing at his desk.Teachers can conduct an error analysis—the process of reviewing error patterns to identify a student’s skill deficits—with progress monitoring data and work samples. An error analysis can help a teacher determine what types of errors were made and why. By identifying error patterns, the teacher can identify a student’s skill deficits and can subsequently align intervention adaptations to the student’s specific needs.
There are a variety of ways to conduct error analyses, and these differ depending on the skills targeted in the intervention and the grade level of the student.
Tools
Teachers use Edulastic to find or develop diagnostic assessments in a number of creative ways. Some teachers set up diagnostics in the form of introductory activities, classic multiple-choice assessments, or tech-enhanced “quizzes”. The automated grading feature of Edulastic makes it easy to instantly know how much information the class as a whole already knows.
Assessment for learning
Summative assessment
What is it: it involves teachers using evidence about students' knowledge, understanding and skills to inform their teaching. Sometimes referred to as ‘formative assessment', it usually occurs throughout the teaching and learning process to clarify student learning and understanding.
Why is it used: This is used for the teacher to understand what gaps in knowledge the students have, what lessons were too easy/too difficult, and to make adjustments in the classroom environment/lesson planning to facilitate successful learning. It is also used to allow for further student differentiation through strategy groups or conferring especially in reading and writing, and math groups based on needs.
Example:
- Playing the 'three summaries' game. At the end of a lesson, students have to write three summaries of what they have been learning. The first can be around 10 words, the next can be around 20 words, and the third can be around 50+ words (the numbers will be adjusted so as to be grade appropriate).
- Mid unit reflection on what was learned: going back to the pre-assessment mind map where student wrote down everything they know about a certain subject at the beginning of the unit, and with a different color add any and all information they remember being taught about that subject.
- For mid-unit reflection on culture: students are presented with different cultures around the world, and some games, dances, stories, salutes or foods from those countries. Throughout this experiences the students learn the diversity of the world we live in, some of the perspectives those cultures have or things they value.
Assessment as learning
What is it: Assessment as learning occurs when students are their own assessors. Students monitor their own learning, ask questions and use a range of strategies to decide what they know and can do, and how to use assessment information for new learning.
Why is it used:
This kind of assessment gives students autonomy over their own learning and allows them to be active, rather than passive, learners. They take a role in reflecting on their own knowledge and skills and it helps develop their critical thinking and problem solving skills, as well as helping them gain more self-knowledge. This gives them the impetus to take educational risks and embrace the possibility of being wrong, giving them a growth mindset and inner motivation to learn.
Example: Students are tasked with writing a short story with a clear beginning, middle and end. Before starting, they are shown two or three examples of work which successfully meet the criteria and, once the students have completed their own stories, assess them by comparing with the examples shown. A rubric can be used to help the self-assessment. The teacher then provides feedback to the student which helps them reflect on adjustments they could make and other ways they can improve for next time.
Assessment of learning
What is it:
It assists teachers in using evidence of student learning to assess achievement against outcomes and standards. Sometimes referred to as ‘summative assessment', it usually occurs at defined key points during a teaching work or at the end of a unit, term or semester, and may be used to rank or grade students.
Why is it used:
It is used to plan further learning for students, as well as show growth, knowledge acquired during the unit and achievement to the students, parents, other teachers, school or district.
Example:
- end of unit summative assessment/test (for elementary students especially in math)
- project
- video
- presentation (poster, slides/powerpoint)
- writing piece (story, opinion writing, personal narrative, collection of poems, or others
depending on the writing unit)
What is it:
Formative assessment is a process that aims to determine when and how to adjust instructional activities or learning tactics in order to achieve learning goals. It occurs throughout the whole teaching and learning process.
Why is it used:
It is used to monitor a student's progress in learning and mastering a certain skill or learning and applying certain information. This information allows the teacher to adjust the pace, structure, learning methods and classroom management to successfully meet students' needs.
Example:
Students are assigned certain topics to teach or present to the class, just as a teacher might.
They might have to complete a maths question on the board and explain their process, or teach the rules for the verb agreements for have and has, and give examples. The teacher would observe students' explanations (and interject as needed) and could see the teaching students' understanding of the material.
This also evaluates the skills of planning, speaking and presenting.
Teachers could have the students evaluate their writing mid-unit, based on a checklist and a mini-progression, in order for them to see where they are and what they should focus on next. This can be done independently, after the students understand the check-list, and afterwards the student has a guide as to what they need to improve. Teachers can also have one-on-one conferring with the students to guide them in this process.
Other examples that could be used as formative assessments can be mid-unit reflections, exit tickets, quizzes on Kahoot, mid-uni assessment or mind maps that show their understanding of the unit at that point.
What is it:
Summative assessment occurs at the end of the learning process and is typically
graded. The purpose of summative assessment is to provide some evidence to see if the student has mastered the knowledge, skills and understanding etc.
Why is it used:
It is used by the teacher to see the growth, knowledge acquired during the unit and achievement the students have attained during a unit to the students, parents, other teachers, school or district. This is a periodic report used as evidence of student progress, especially for reports, in order to show if the students have reached the conceptual understandings of the units.
Example:
Some examples of summative assessments include tests, projects,
demonstrations, presentations, and performance tasks
Examples:
- Science lab(blood sample), or in science class, teachers can conduct a laboratory investigation such as invest the principle of lunar eclipse by building a model.
- Argue a case
- Debate as a WHO rep
- Shoot a film
- Exhibition of students work
- Make a newspaper
Tools:
Rubrics
Observation charts
Peer Annotation
Student Check Lists
What is performance assessment:
A performance assessment involves applying and showing skills and knowledge through various performance tasks. It is an approach to educational assessment that requires students to directly demonstrate what they know and are able to do through open-ended tasks such as constructing an answer, producing a project, or performing an activity.
Why it is used:
To prepare students for life outside of school. Instead of quizzes in school, careers in real life are usually not tests but performance based. Student needs to have this assessment in order to be more prepared in life outside of school.
Also, performing assessment requires students to show what they know, rather than select answers from predetermined options on a multiple-choice test.
Math post-assessment
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Unit of Inquiry example:
Create a country based on the descriptions below and think about the culture the country has base on the information given. Each student in the group thinks of an area they are interested in to explore (sports, language, clothing, games, food, symbols):
Group 3 participants:
Qi Su
Mattie Ross
Ziaowei Yang
Dorothea - Cristiana Achim