There are two main types of assessment:
- Formative or WHILE TEACHING assessment.
- Summative or AFTER TEACHING assessment.
And here’s an introduction to them to know what you must know about them
Characteristics Of Formative Assessment:
- Used all the time.
- Students don’t know it is taking place.
- Monitoring progress throughout the learning process.
- Assessing behaviour and study habits.
Formative Assessment Techniques.
- Pair and group work.
- Concept-checking questions.
- Self-assessment.
- Review & project lessons & homework assignments.
1. Pairs and groups:
Monitor students as they are performing tasks and when they are presenting their products.
Go around and:
- Check that students are on task.
- Check that all are engaged.
- Help where needed.
- Assess learning.
2. Concept-checking questions:
They are asked to:
- Check understanding of key concepts.
- Know if students are following or having problems.
3. Self-assessment:
Encourage students to assess their own progress and link it to a specific rubric i.e., the unit’s objectives box.
Why Self-assessment?
- Gives students responsibility for their own learning.
- Gives students a realistic picture of their progress.
- Boosts confidence and empowers students.
- Shows students where they need to improve.
- Provides a round-up of each unit for review.
- Provides you with a snapshot of learning and progress to use for assessment against learning objectives.
4. Review & project lessons & homework assignments (Performance-based assessment):
They require students to apply their knowledge and skills in context, not merely complete a task on cue.
Before doing this kind of assessment, you should answer these questions:
- What am I trying to assess?
- What should my students know?
- At what level should my students be performing?
- What type of knowledge is being assessed: Memory, Reasoning, or Process?
And also, you should take into account these things:
- Time allowed.
- Availability of resources in the classroom.
- How much data is necessary in order to make an informed decision about the quality of a student’s performance? (Sampling)
Characteristics Of Formal (Summative Assessment:
- Ss know they are evaluated.
- Used at the end of a month or the term.
- Ss perform a task or complete a project.
- Ss are observed and evaluated while performing or after finishing a product.
Formal assessment must be implemented according to certain criteria.
To define these criteria well, you should consider the following steps:
- Imagine yourself performing the task.
- Limit the number of performance criteria.
- Express the performance criteria in terms of observable pupil behaviours or product characteristics.
- Don’t use ambiguous words in the performance criteria.
- List the important aspects of the performance or product.
- Arrange the performance criteria in the order in which they are likely to be observed.
- Agree with a group of teachers upon accepted behaviours.
- Focus on authentic assessment.
Characteristics of Authentic Assessments:
- Students perform, create or produce something.
- Students self-reflect on their products.
- Measuring significant outcomes.
- Developing higher-level thinking and problem-solving skills.
- Using meaningful tasks.
- Involving real-world applications.
- Encouraging continuous learning.
- Based on explicit criteria.
- Is as important as curriculum and teaching.
- Judged by humans, not a machine.
- Involving individual and group work.
Assessment Tips
- Use the ‘traffic light’ system.
Get students to assess their understanding with a traffic light.
Red = I don’t understand (need reteaching)
Orange = partial understanding (need more practice)
Green = good understanding (objectives achieved).
- Carry a small notebook when you monitor the class.
Note down who needs more help and who needs extra questions.
