10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds 10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds by TeachThought Staff Good assessment is frequent assessment. Any assessment is designed to provide a snapshot of student understand—the more snapshots, the more complete the full picture of knowledge. On its best day, an assessment will be 100% effective, telling you exactly what a student understands. This makes a strong argument for frequent assessment, as it can be too easy to over-react and “remediate” students who may be banging against the limits of the assessment’s design rather than their own understanding. It is a huge burden (for both teachers and students) to design, write, complete, grade, and absorb the data into an instructional design sequence on a consistent basis. Simple Assessments The word “simple” here is misleading. Then, due to their brevity, they’re simple to grade–in fact, you can grade them as exit slips–which makes taking the data and informing instruction (the whole point of assessment) a much simpler process as well.
How Should We Measure Student Learning? 5 Keys to Comprehensive Assessment Linda: The United States is at a moment where it could really transform its assessment systems. Most of our testing is multiple choice tests, pick one answer out of five, which is something you will never do in applying knowledge in the real world. Our assessments need to evolve to reflect the skills and knowledge that we actually value and that we need schools to teach and our children to learn. Human beings are naturally learners. We are learning every moment of every day. In school, we have particular things to learn and we know that students learn more effectively when we're clear about what the goals are. Chinasa: I kind of like, I want like a goal in my head about what to do with information that I get. Erin: I look at the beginning of the year and I say, what are the big ideas that I want students to know in the whole year and what are the major skills I want them to be able to do? Linda: Assessment should occur early and often and throughout the process. Student: Connection.
Free Resources and Tools for "Authentic" Assessment The key to innovations in assessment and curriculum planning are trust, transparency, and collaboration -- and providing the professional development and training teachers need to succeed. Credit: Tom LeGoff Note: The School of the Future is part of a network of New York schools that develops and uses its own assessment techniques, referred to as DYOs. The school also uses Tasks on Demand, or unannounced assessments that do not provide supports for the students, in order to measure their learning at regular intervals. Resources On This Page: Do Your Own (DYO) Assessment Examples, Rubrics, Data, and Data Analysis Examples of criteria used in authentic assessment Back to Top Skills Spirals and Tracking Sheets Ideas for moving curriculum into a circular pattern and tracking performance to expose students to a wide variety of topics over and over again as the material gets more challenging SOF's Instuctional Tools for Teachers Tools for Developing a High School Humanities Project -- Persepolis
Designing Rubrics to Fit Assignments Highlights Earth Day Kids love hearing about the Earth and ways we can be better to our environment! We've gathered some great resources to help you celebrate Earth Day (April 22) with your class. Videos Interested in using different types of media in your classroom? April Calendar of Events April is full of events that you can incorporate into your standard curriculum. Coding & Computer Science Introduce your students to basic coding and computer science! Refocusing assessment on teaching and learning This post is sponsored by Curriculum Associates. Assessment. It could almost be considered a “bad word” in the education world. With varying opinions, bringing up the Common Core State Standards or discussing state tests can sometimes feel like opening the ultimate can of worms. Can we achieve these goals by using assessments in smarter ways? I recently had a chance to sit down with Ken Tam, executive director of personalized learning at Curriculum Associates to get his thoughts on assessment and where it is headed in the future. Why has assessment become a “bad word” in some circles? There has been too much focus on high stakes assessment for purposes like accountability. We also haven’t done a good enough job at getting information to teachers in a timely manner, with enough detail so they can adapt teaching and learning. What is the purpose of assessments? I think this is a false choice. Yes, I think so. What questions should educators ask as they evaluate their assessment strategy?
In Support of Excellence | In Support of Excellence Powered by Translate DOWNLOAD THE LATEST VERSION: V4 published Mar 2015. This PDF Poster has links to 122 of the latest and most popular educational apps. Now these resources are available in 19 different languages. I am still a little numb at the amazing interest in, and discussion about, the Padagogy Wheel from teachers and educators around the world. So why yet another version only one week later? Graduate Attributes and Capabilities: Without this your learning design will drift. These capabilities should be identified as part of our graduate attributes and woven into the fabric of our courses in the activity design. Please visit the blog post and listen to the podcast episode at: “If you exercise these capabilities.. you will be employed!” The Puzzle of Motivation: Teachers use the term engagement all the time. Dan Pink shows what science knows about motivation and what business does about it are largely mismatched.
Life After Levels – An Assessment Revolution? Over recent months I’ve been involved in interviews for a number of posts across the Multi Academy Trust. One of our favourite questions has been, “What will assessment look like once levels are dead?” The answers have on the whole been a bit confused. This post is based on a webinar I delivered for Optimus Education in March 2015. A Necessary Confusion Teachers and potential leaders are struggling to imagine life after levels, proposing that we keep with levels or that we produce our own levelling systems for Key Stage 2 or 3. Levels were removed in September 2014, with the introduction of the new National Curriculum, and will be reported for the final time in Summer 2015 for Years 2 & 6. New Horizons As the sun sets on the World of Levels, we need to lift our eyes to the horizon and make sure decisions about our new assessment systems are taking us in the right direction. Principle 1 – Assessment Must Support Learning Summative Assessment: Of Learning or For Grading? References Like this:
Final Exams…a Tradition Worth Exploring I have been having many conversations this year with teachers about our practice of administering final exams for students. Although I cannot confirm with certainty, I recently read that the final exam process has been happening since the 1830s. With all the current research on effective assessment, how students learn and knowing that we are required to make decisions that have a student’s best interest as the primary consideration, I have to question why we are still doing this, this way. What is the purpose of a final exam and is it the best way to achieve that purpose? Many people indicate that a final is a way for teachers to measure whether or not a student has learned what has been taught in the classroom, some indicate its how universities do it so we should too and others sometime claim it prepares them for the “real world.” I watched a teacher work with a student the other day.
DERN Personalised learning, reflection, collaboration and .critical thinking are highly valued in education, and classroom practices are changing towards learning as a collaborative activity. Exploration is encouraged and fostered; however, assessment is still following a traditional path – heavily dependent on summative assessment. A short paper, by Phillipa Whiteford, titled The times are a-changing: A New Model for Senior Secondary Assessment explores how a more ‘future-focused’ application of an ePortfolio can provide an innovative solution to the challenges facing current assessment practice in senior secondary education. The author builds a strong argument for the need to align assessment to teaching practices, referencing research on new teaching practices and assessment, and pointing out a need for integrative assessment which combines both assessment for and of learning based on continuous feedback, guidance and reflection (p.66). [1] Fullan, M. & Miles, M. (1992). Research Report:
6 Types Of Assessment Of Learning 6 Types Of Assessment Of Learning by TeachThought Staff If curriculum is the what of teaching, and learning models are the how, assessment is the puzzled “Hmmmm”–as in, I assumed this and this about student learning, but after giving this assessment, well….”Hmmmmm.” So what are the different types of assessment of learning? This graphic below from McGraw Hill offers up six forms; the next time someone says “assessment,’ you can say “Which type, and what are we doing with the data?” like the TeachThought educator you are. 1. One way to think about it: Assesses a student’s strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, and skills prior to instruction. Another way to think about it: A baseline to work from 2. One way to think about it: Assesses a student’s performance during instruction, and usually occurs regularly throughout the instruction process. Another way to think about it: Like a doctor’s “check-up” to provide data to revise instruction 3. 4. 5. 6. 6 Types Of Assessment Of Learning