Reflective Journal Entry Eight- Assessment and Learning

            As an educator, I am always trying to find a balanced approach to assessing student learning. With standardized assessments taking a more and more prevalent role in guiding our instruction and assessing student growth and learning, I believe it is our responsibility to provide a more authentic view of our students’ growth and abilities. A combination of authentic and standardized assessments can give us a much broader and more accurate picture of student growth and achievements.

            A variety of assessments are necessary in determining student performance. Evaluations are important for providing feedback for students, teachers, and parents (Slavin, 2012). Assessments are broken down into two basic categories, which are formative and summative evaluations (Slavin, 2012). Formative evaluations are a way to determine how well students are learning content along the way, while summative evaluations show what students know at the end of a unit. Both of these types of evaluations are important in determining student learning, but should be used in different ways to be effective.

            Formative assessments are designed to assess students’ learning throughout a learning unit. These can be done informally in a variety of ways without taking large amounts of time. This week’s discussion posts provide insight into how teachers use these in the classroom. Examples provided include conferencing with students, listening to group discussions, short quizzes, student cues, and short written responses. Many posts also stated that formative assessments are very important in meeting students’ needs because they show where students need additional assistance and enrichment. Finding out that a student is struggling or needs assistance early on in the learning process is very important, especially prior to a summative assessment.

            I believe it is important to use a variety of assessments, and that we should strive to incorporate more authentic assessments. Slavin (2012) states, “One goal of these “alternative assessments” is to demonstrate achievement in realistic conditions” (p.429). This year my fifth grade students are being provided iPads for during and after school use, and I plan to incorporate these types of assessments with the use of this technology. I have always wanted to create personal portfolios for my students, but find the paperwork and storage to be difficult to manage, so I am going to work with the students to create online portfolios that they can expand on throughout the year and in the future. I also plan to have students reflect on their work and add pieces and documents that they believe demonstrate their best work. I believe these portfolios will be valuable to use for parent conferencing as well due to the fact that parents will be able to see how their child is progressing.  

            It is important that learning objectives match assessments and that we use a variety of work samples for grading purposes. I believe combining formative and summative assessments with authentic assessments provides a more realistic understanding of student learning and progress. Presently, primarily standardized test scores determine student success and I believe that teachers have a great opportunity to capture more of students’ learning and progress with the addition of authentic assessments. Students need to know that their learning is more than standardized test scores and that real world applications of skills and concepts are the true measure of learning and growth.

Reference

Slavin, R. E. (2012). Educational Psychology: Theory and practice (10^th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.