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Assessment TIPR

There are so many ways that teachers can assess their students, especially in the Language Arts department. I the 7th grade English Language Arts class that I am observing the teacher is constantly assessing where her students are and what her teaching is accomplishing.

Mrs. Dodds gave a diagnostic assessment to her students. Next week they are going to be learning about plot, she has not talked to them about it yet but reminded them that they should have learned about it in 6th grade. She had the students watch 2 short videos and fill out a worksheet pointing out certain parts of the plot. Mrs. Dodds wanted to know what her students remembered from last year so that she would not waste time teaching them things they already understood about plot.

Mrs. Dodds also gave many informal assessments through out the class periods. She would walk around the class as students work and asked them questions about whether they understood what they are working on. Watched what they were doing. Read their papers to see if they understood the concept of characterization. There were group discussions that she could listen to and make sure that the kids were understanding the concepts that they were talking about. These types of assessments can inform her teaching pace for the rest of the unit and can help her clarify things that she thought she had taught well but that students did not seem to be understanding.

There was also her formal assessment on the concept of characterization that had been given last week. This was a formative assessment that they took in the middle of the unit to see if they were understanding the concept as she went along. This quiz was given for a grade but it was also used to see where the students where in her teaching and how much more she needed to relay to them before the end of the unit's summative assessment. 

The assessments were reliable because the students knew what was expected from them from the beginning and the criterion did not change from day to day or across different times of day. They were also valid because they were testing what she had been teaching in class or was going to teach in class.

Find more information about valid assessment at: https://fcit.usf.edu/assessment/basic/basicc.html

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