Assessments

1. References: Advantages and Disadvantages of Various Assessment Methods. Retrieved on September 13, 2016. https://www.uta.edu/ier/Resources/AssessMethods.pdf Benefits of Formative Assessment. Retrieved on September 12, 2016. http://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/benefits-of-formative-assessment-in-the-classroom/ Defining Portfolio Assessment. Retrieved on September 13, 2016. http://www.unm.edu/~devalenz/handouts/portfolio.html List of Pros and Cons of High Stakes Testing. Retrieved on September 14, 2016. http://occupytheory.org/list-of-pros-and-cons-of-high-stakes-testing/ Self and Peer Assessment. Retrieved on September 14, 2016. https://sydney.edu.au/education_social_work/groupwork/docs/SelfPeerAssessment.pdf

2. Portfolio Assessment: A systematic collection of student work and related material that depicts a student's activities, accomplishments, and achievements in one or more school subjects. The collection should include evidence of student reflection and self-evaluation, guidelines for selecting the portfolio contents, and criteria for judging the quality of the work. The purpose is to give the students a way to put everything together and show what they have learned. This is an assessment of learning because students are showing off everything that they have learned.

2.1. Example: The teacher has asked the students to put together a portfolio of all of their assignments throughout the semester. That way they can see their progression.

2.2. Advantages of Portfolio Assessment: This type of assessment really highlights a students strengths and shows what they can do well. It can also be used to view learning and development longitudinally.

2.3. Disadvantages of Portfolio Assessment: This type of assessment is challenging and can be quite time consuming when evaluating it. Also, students may forget to save their assignments too.

3. Authentic Assessment: A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills. This is both an assessment of learning and for learning because it asks students to show what they have learned, but also they will learn that real life events that have taken place in their lives can help them relate to the things that are occurring in their daily lives.

3.1. Example: The teacher asks the students to write a story about real events that have taken place in their lives.

3.2. Advantages of Authentic Assessment: This type of assessment requires students to use higher order thinking skills which makes them apply their knowledge in different ways. This helps students compare things inside and outside of the classroom.

3.3. Disadvantages of Authentic Assessment: This type of assessment doesn't let a teacher measure a students skill level in different areas. This also takes longer than just giving a regular exam and that takes away from teaching to the class.

4. Peer Assessment: This type of assessment is a process whereby students or their peers grade assignments or tests based on a teacher's benchmarks. The purpose of this assessment is to save teachers time and improve students' understanding of course materials as well as improve their meta-cognitive skills. This is an assessment of learning because students are learning to grade their peers.

4.1. Example: The teacher asks the students in the class to grade one another's one page essay that she has assigned them to write.

4.2. Advantages of Peer Assessment: This type of assessment encourages students being involved and also holds them responsible for providing peer feedback. This also helps students in developing their peer editing skills.

4.3. Disadvantages of Peer Assessment: Students sometimes have a habit of not wanting to hurt others feelings by being honest with them and giving them a bad grade. Also, they may give their friends higher grades too. Students may also have a bad habit of giving everyone the same grade.

5. Diagnostic Assessment: This measures what a student knows before the teacher begins teaching. The purpose is to assess a students strengths, weaknesses and prior knowledge. It is an assessment for learning because now the teacher will be able to find out what the students know and what he or she will have to teach the students.

5.1. Example: In History class the teacher will ask the students to write a paragraph about what they know about World War II. This will let the teacher know if they have any prior knowledge and also what students are good writers too.

5.2. Advantages of Diagnostic Assessment: This type of assessment allows teachers to see what kind of prior knowledge a student has and allows them to differentiate instruction with certain students.

5.3. Disadvantages of Diagnostic Assessment: This type of assessment may cause teachers to make incorrect judgments on students ability levels.

6. Summative Assessment: They are used to evaluate student learning, skill acquisition, and academic achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period. Teachers often give this type of assessment at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or school year. The purpose of this is to see how much a student has learned and retained over a period of time. This is an assessment of learning because the students are being taught something and the teacher will be able to see how much they know after the unit semester or school year is over with.

6.1. Example: At the end of the school year, the teacher gives the class a comprehensive test of everything they have learning throughout the semester.

6.2. Advantages of Summative Assessment: This is a great way to see if the students have understood and retained the information that was taught to them. It is also a good way for teachers to evaluate themselves when it comes to their teaching methods.

6.3. Disadvantages of Summative Assessment: One big test at the end of the semester or school year can cause some students to stress out and not perform well on the test even though they know the information well. This assessment also doesn't let teachers modify their teaching of the unit because by this point it is already over.

7. Advantages of Performance Based Assessment: This type of assessment gets students comfortable working in groups/teams. It gives them experience working alongside other people which is something they will have to do in the job world eventually. It also gives the students an opportunity to be creative and come up with their own ideas on how to display the information.

7.1. Disadvantages of Performance Based Assessment: Often times, projects are time consuming. Especially when working in groups. You have to give the students time to find information and then collaborate which takes time. Also, it is sometimes difficult to evaluate whether or not the students are retaining and understanding the information being taught to them when presenting things in a group.

8. Example: The teacher gives the class a group project to do in English Class. The class breaks up into small groups with each group delegating tasks to each other. Each group will then present to the class their final project. This teaches the class good team work.

9. Advantages of a Formative Assessment: The results of a test lets teachers adjust their instruction to help students understand things better. The students who are being assessed are the ones who benefit from the adjustment. Also, students can use the results of the assessment to adjust their own learning strategies and techniques too.

9.1. Disadvantages of a Formative Assessment: Sometimes teachers can't make time to assess the material and then rush through the lessons which doesn't give the student much time to retain the information. Students then don't take the assessments seriously because they were being rush in learning the material.

10. Formative Assessment: A range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment. It is an assessment of learning because students are being tested and assessed on how much information they are retaining.

10.1. Example: The teacher gives the class a quiz on a chapter of 'Catcher in the Rye' that they just read. The teacher and class then go over the answers together.

11. Performance Based Assessment: Measures students' ability to apply the skills and knowledge learned from a unit or units of study. This also helps students learn how to problem solve easier too. It is an assessment of learning because the students are being required to show prior knowledge in problem solving which is something that they learned through this teaching strategy.

12. High Stakes Assessment: This type of assessment is a test used to make important decisions about students, educators, schools, or districts, most commonly for the purpose of accountability. This type of test gives the state and local government a measuring stick of how well students are understanding the information being taught to them. This is an assessment of learning because it measures how much information the student is retaining.

12.1. Example: During the spring time the local middle schools will be giving MEAP tests to measure how much knowledge students have when it comes to reading, writing and math. This type of testing will also measure how effective the teachers teaching methods are too.

12.2. Advantages of High Stakes Assessment: With this type of assessment the test scores are always available to teachers. This also gives the teachers a good idea of what areas they need to teach with greater length.

12.3. Disadvantages of High Stakes Assessment: One of the disadvantages of this type of assessment is sometimes the subjects being tested aren't emphasized very highly in the school and the students test poorly in that subject area. Another disadvantage is sometimes students put so much pressure on themselves to perform well in these types of tests that they end up performing poorly.

13. Self Assessment: This is where students evaluate themselves personally. They are supposed to honestly evaluate how well they are understanding subjects. The purpose of this is to help students evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses. This is an assessment of learning because students are learning how to evaluate themselves and this will help them eventually in evaluating others.

13.1. Example: The teacher asks students to evaluate their own projects that were assigned to them. The teacher will give them the criteria for evaluating themselves.

13.2. Advantages of Self Assessment: This type of assessment gets students thinking about their own learning and what areas they are good in and what are they need to improve in. This also helps the teacher identify the problem areas the students might have.

13.3. Disadvantages of Self Assessment: Sometimes students may not be honest with themselves when self evaluating. Also, sometimes students just don't know what to do when evaluating themselves and others. Unless the teacher goes over the entire evaluation process, which can be time consuming in itself, then there could be many students not understanding what to do.