DIFFERENT TYPES OF ASSESSMENTS *EXAMPLES ARE FOR A GRADE ONE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS CLASS

1. PERFORMANCE BASED - this is an assessment that uses student products or activities to evaluate their knowledge, skills and development; some examples are exhibitions, presentations, demonstrations and different forms of writing. This is primarily an assessment of learning since its main purpose is to grade and certify students' achievement; teachers observe students' performance to assess their mastery of the learning objective(s).

1.1. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES- The advantages are: 1) They often provide students with "real world" experiences and can be very engaging; 2) They tap into an area of students' intelligence and creativity that might otherwise be ignored; 3) They give students the opportunity to present their skills and knowledge in ways that other assessments cannot. The disadvantages are: 1) The performances can be time-consuming; 2) They do not provide the same kind of documentation as more traditional assessments and therefore, can be more difficult to grade; 3) They often require self-motivation and independent learning, which may not work for all students.

1.1.1. EXAMPLE- For a Grade One English Language Arts class students are asked to interview a family member and write a short biography about him or her.

2. PORTFOLIO - this is an asessment that is a compilation of a student's work and contains representations of classroom based performance; it may include a variety of work, e.g., writing samples, art work, projects, videos of presentations. Its purpose is to give a holistic view of student learning. This is primarily an assessment of learning since its main purpose is to certify student achievement after learning has taken place. (It could be argued that it provides information that can be used to adjust instruction during the learning process, in which case it would be an assessment for learning).

2.1. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES: The advantages of portfolios are: 1) They can provide documentation of a student's achievement over time; 2) They are student-centered and can engage students ; 3) They are not limiting and can include a wide variety of materials and use different mediums; 4) They can nurture student's creativity. The disadvantages are: 1) They can be difficult and time-consuming to grade; 2) They can be cumbersome to keep in the classroom; 3) Because they are not standardized, it can be difficult to compare the quality of different students' work.

2.1.1. EXAMPLE: A Portfolio for a Grade One student in an English Language Arts class might include: writing samples from Writer's Workshop, a VoiceThread recording of the student reading his/her writing , illustrations for his/her writing samples, a video of a group presentation

3. AUTHENTIC - this is an assessment that measures students' understanding of both the product and the learning process; students develop the knowledge and skills necessary to address "real world" problems and situations when making their product . This is primarily an assessment of learning since it is summative and its main purpose is to certify student achievement and mastery of learning objective(s). (Although during the process of creating the product, the assessment is for learning.)

3.1. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES: The advantages are: 1) Students don't have to memorize facts for a test; 2) Students can use their creativity to demonstrate what they have learned; 3) Students can analyze what they have gained from this "real world" learning process and apply it to their own experiences. The disadvantages are: 1) Like performance based assessments (which are also sometimes referred to as authentic assessments), they do not provide the same kind of documentation as more traditional assessments and therefore, can be difficult to grade; 2) They can require more self-motivation and independent learning, which may not be suitable for all students.

3.1.1. EXAMPLE - For a Grade One English Language Arts Class, students give speeches on why they believe they would be a good candidate for class president.

4. SELF-ASSESSMENT - this is an assessment which requires students to monitor their own progress toward learning objectives; in order to do this, students must have a clear understanding of their learning goals. The purpose of self-assessment is to give students the opportunity to reflect on their progress toward meeting learning goals and use critical thinking skills to evaluate their work. Self-assessment can help motivate students. This is primarily an assessment for learning since it is constant (not fixed during a single point of time) and its main purpose is to support the student and advance his/her learning .

4.1. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES The advantages of self-assessments are: 1) They are student- centered and help give students ownership of their learning; 2) They individualize the learning process; 3) They encourage students to set and meet goals (which is a valuable life skill); 4) They also promote self-reflection which is also an important skill for success. The disadvantages are: 1) It is hard for students to self-evaluate (especially young students); 2) Students may have a tendency to inflate or deflate their progress; 3) The teacher will need to train students how to fairly and accurately self-evaluate their work.

4.1.1. EXAMPLE - For a GRADE ONE English Language Arts class students will use a checklist to evaluate their informative writing pieces; they will check yes or no on the checklist for: 1) Did I provide two or more facts? 2) Do all of my sentences begin with a capital? 3) Do all of my sentences end with a period, question mark or exclamation mark? 4) Did I give an ending?

5. PEER ASSESSMENT - this is an assessment that involves students evaluating one another and giving feedback to peer(s). Its purpose is to improve student performance and help students to critically evaluate the quality of class work. This is primarily an assessment for learning since it is aimed at helping students advance their learning and is just one data element in the assessment process.

5.1. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES - The advantages of peer assessments are: 1)They improve critical thinking skills since students must defend their evaluations with sound reasons; 2) Students feel responsible for the achievement of their classmates which builds community; 3) Students gain a clearer understanding of the learning objective(s). The disadvantages are: 1) The teacher must train students how to effectively evaluate each other; 2) Students may not feel comfortable evaluating one another; 3) Students may inflate or deflate scoring based on reasons other than the quality of the work (for example, if the peer is a close friend, the score may be inflated)

5.1.1. EXAMPLE - In a Grade One English Language Arts class, students will use a rating scale to score the clarity of each other's informative writing samples; the rating scale with be from 1-4 and will be evaluated as follows: 1 I had trouble understanding it; 2 I understood some of it; 3 I understood most of it; I understood all of it.

6. REFERENCES-

7. HIGH STAKES - this is an assessment that is usually a standardized test and is considered "high stakes" because decisions about students, teachers, schools or districts are based on the scores students receive on it. For example, a student may be prevented from graduating if he/she does not do well on a high stakes test, or teachers may receive bonuses if students in their classes do well on it. The purpose of this kind of test is to make sure federal, state and local governmental agencies are being held accountable for providing effective schools and teachers. This is primarily an assessment of learning since it is given at the end of the learning and teaching process and is used to rank student achievement.

7.1. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES - The advantages of high stakes assessments are: 1) They can be used to measure student progress toward meeting learning objectives for the local, state and/or national governmental agencies; 2) They can be used to help teachers create learning plans that address student needs; 3) They can be administered to large student populations of the same age or grade level in a state, region or country and the results can be used to compare individuals or groups of students; 4) Data from statewide tests is usually publicly available so parents can see results; 5) Over time, this testing can help improve students' test taking skills. The disadvantages are: 1) They place too much stress on students, teachers and schools; 2) Teachers spend too much time teaching to the test, so students lose out on more innovative instruction (also other content may be sacrificed to spend more time teaching for the test); 3) Cultural biases continue to exist on some of these tests.

7.1.1. EXAMPLE: High stakes assessments for accountability purposes are delayed until Grade 3 because they are not that accurate at the early primary level).The PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment) is an example of a high stakes exam in Pennsylvania. Students in Grades 3-8 take this exam and it is used to assess their English Language Arts and math skills. A Grade One ELA assessment that is used in New York is Pearson's ReadyGEN ELA assessment.

8. DIAGNOSTIC- this is an assessment that is given before learning has taken place and gives a baseline for students' skill levels. Its purpose is to determine what students already know and where they are having difficulty. This is primarily an assessment for learning since it is aimed to help advance a student's learning and is just one element in the assessment process and is constant rather than set in a single point of time.

8.1. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES - The advantages of diagnostic assessments are: 1) They provide information about what students already know which is helpful when lesson planning; 2) They help teachers to better understand the needs of their students; 3) They can be used to provide information about students' skill levels for reading, as well as other content areas.

8.1.1. EXAMPLE: DIBELS (Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Learning Skills) is a reading diagnostic assessment that is often used in the early primary grades to measure students' reading levels.

9. FORMATIVE - this is an assessment that is given throughout the learning process and provides feedback while the learning is in progress. Its purpose is to provide the teacher with information about whether or not students are grasping concepts; this can help the teacher make instructional decisions on whether to move forward in a unit or to reteach if necessary. This assessment is primarily for learning since it is aimed to support and advance the students' learning and is constant; it is embedded throughout the teaching and learning process.

9.1. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES - The advantages of formative assessments are: 1) They provide fast feedback on student learning; 2) Students are usually not nervous or stressed when they use them; 3) They can be given using a wide array of formats; 4) They can help the teacher understand his/her progress with teaching, as well as help the student understand his/her progress with learning; 5) They can be fun and interactive; 6) They are usually easy to administer . The disadvantages are: 1) They don't always provide quantifiable data; 2) Students may look at their peers for answers (for example, when using clickers or mini whiteboards) so the feedback might not always be reliable; 3) They don't provide formal data for assessment, and therefore, may not be useful for grading purposes.

9.1.1. EXAMPLE - An example of a formative assessment for a GRADE ONE English Language Arts class working on informative writing would be to ask students to put one finger up if they think a statement is a fact and to put two fingers up if they think it is an opinion.

10. SUMMATIVE -this is an assessment that is given after learning has taken place, often at the end of a unit or term. Its purpose is to measure a student's achievement in relation to the learning objectives. This is primarily an assessment of learning since it takes place at the end of the teaching and learning process and is used to rank students' achievement.

10.1. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES: The advantages of summative assessments are: 1) They provide information that can hold students accountable for their learning; 2) They can be readily used for grading. The disadvantages are: 1) The formatting of the summative assessment may negatively affect how well some students do; 2) Sometimes too much weight is given to the summative assessment and can therefore unfairly affect a student's grade and cause undue stress; 3) If the student is not feeling well either physically or emotionally the day of a summative assessment, that could negatively affect his/her grade and may not be a true reflection of the student's learning; 4) A summative assessment does not always reflect a student's effort, creativity and/or progress.

10.1.1. EXAMPLE: An example of a summative assessment for a Grade One English Language Arts class working on informative writing is to have students write a mini-autobiography to meet the Common Core informative writing standard (W 1.2) that requires them to identify a specific topic, give some facts about that topic, and provide some closure to their writing.