M6U1A1 - Peter Marsden - Assessments - 6th Grade Geography
by Peter Marsden
1. Diagnostic
1.1. Purpose: A diagnostic assessment measures the ability of a student before teaching has taken place.
1.2. Advantages/Disadvantages: An advantage is finding a starting point for where to begin teaching your students. A disadvantage is that the assessment may not accurately capture the students' abilities and the assessment becomes useless.
1.3. Type of Assessment: This is an assessment for learning because the teacher makes decisions on how to teach based on the results.
1.4. Example: I give my students a map diagnostic at the beginning of the year. It assesses what they know about the location of the continents, oceans, states, countries, and cities of the world. From there, students work throughout the year on memorizing what they didn't already know.
2. Formative
2.1. Purpose: A formative assessment is one that students learn from as they continue to work through an objective.
2.2. Advantage/Disadvantage: An advantage is that these CFU's can generally be done very quickly. A disadvantage is that you don't always get precise evidence as to how students are doing.
2.3. Type of Assessment: This is an assessment for learning because it tells everyone how much the student understands thus far.
2.4. Example: I will sometimes have my students show thumbs down or thumbs up based on if they dis/agree with a given answer.
3. Summative
3.1. Purpose: A summative assessment is a final assessment for learning an objective.
3.2. Advantage/Disadvantage: An advantage is that these generally give everyone a clear depiction of what the student has learned over the course of working with an objective. A disadvantage is that students cannot revise summative assessments.
3.3. Type of Assessment: This is an assessment of learning.
3.4. Example: My semester exams are summative assessments.
4. Performance-Based
4.1. Purpose: A performance-based assessment is a project that has kids applying their understanding to an actual task.
4.2. Advantages/Disadvantages: An advantage is that performance-based assessments usually assess students' higher order thinking skills. A disadvantage is that, like authentic assessments, it may be hard to assess all standards or objectives within one task.
4.3. Type of Assessment: This is an assessment of learning because you're seeing if students are able to apply their understanding to a specific task.
4.4. Example: In my first unit, I have students apply their understanding of maps to create a usable map of a place of their choice. I assess them on the use of map legends, purpose, and directions.
5. High-Stakes
5.1. Purpose: These are standardized tests that are used to "objectively" judge students' abilities against each other.
5.2. Advantages/Disadvantages: An advantage is that students across state or even national lines can be judged by the same scale. A disadvantage is that these tests don't often include many facets of a student's abilities.
5.3. Type of Assessment: These are generally assessments of learning and are used to rank students against a national average.
5.4. Example: My students take the PARCC exam and the MAP exam for reading and math.
6. Portfolio
6.1. Purpose: A portfolio is used to encompass many different types of learning by a student over a period of time.
6.2. Advantages/Disadvantages: An advantage is that everyone can see progress made over time and it includes many different types of learning instead of a limited set. A disadvantage is that these assessments take more time, sometimes significantly.
6.3. Type of Assessment: This is interesting because it fits into both categories. It is an assessment of learning because you can see a student's progress but it's also an assessment for learning as students and teachers reflect on progress to see what examples teaching/learning works better than others.
7. Authentic
7.1. Purpose: Authentic assessments throw students into real-world situations so students can apply their understanding to something that's really happening.
7.2. Advantages/Disadvantages: An advantage is that students are often motivated by authentic situations because they see a useful connection to life. A disadvantage is the difficulty in finding an authentic connection to each piece of learning you want to assess.
7.3. Type of Assessment: This is an assessment of learning because you're seeing if students are able to apply their understanding to a slightly different context.
7.4. Example: I teach advocacy skills in my last unit and our culminating project is an advocacy project where we research a local issue and create presentations to lobby at City Council. For example, this year we covered gang prevention and my students wrote proposals for how City Council should change their
8. Self-Assessment
8.1. Purpose: Self-assessment is a way for students to monitor how they learn best. For example, a student can self-assess how well they think they will do on an exam or how well certain note-taking methods work for them. (OECD, 2005)
8.2. Advantages/Disadvantages: An advantage is that this is an extremely student-centered assessment and encourages student to think meta-cognitively about their own learning. A disadvantage is that it doesn't provide concrete data and there is no guarantee that the students are providing accurate answers.
8.3. Type of Assessment: This is an assessment for learning because it helps students assess the best ways that they personally learn.
8.4. Example: I have my students self-assess for each learning goal I provide in a unit before the lesson as well as before each quiz. This lets students see their growth over the course of learning each objective as well as comparing how well they believe they know material to how well the quiz shows they know the material.
9. Peer Assessment
9.1. Purpose: A peer assessment is one where students give feedback to each other.
9.2. Advantages/Disadvantages: An advantage is that these save time for teachers as students can assess each other and provide feedback instead of the teacher needing to check each piece of work carefully. A disadvantage is that the teacher doesn't have the majority of control over the quality of the assessment.
9.3. Type of Assessment: This is also both an assessment of learning in that one student assesses what the other understands, but also an assessment for learning as the reviewer will understand their own work better as they assess their peer's work.
9.4. Example: While editing pieces of writing, I frequently assign peer assessments. For example, I like to peer assess in groups where each student in a group of four will have a unique role - Student 1 will assess the author's capitalization, Student 2 will assess punctuation, Student 3 will assess grammar, and Student 4 will assess missing or extra words.
10. Sources
10.1. "Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms." ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT (OECD) (2005): 1-8. Web.