Introduction

In my classroom, I want assessments to be a way for students to understand both the material

taught, and what they know about the material taught. While summative and end of unit

assessments are important to understand what students are learning, I believe formative

assessments are just as important, if not more. I noticed this in my observations of my

cooperating teacher’s class, as well as through the various course readings and videos in ED 311.

These three experiences influenced my plan by alerting me to the need for formative assessments

and why they are useful in the classroom. Students respond to well-informed feedback, and I

think that is one of the most important parts of the cycle of assessment. At the high school level,

students are very receptive to feedback, and in math it can be the difference between

understanding a concept or not. I want my students to learn math, and assessments are very

useful tools to measure and gage student learning and mastery. Without assessments, my

classroom would not be a successful one.

5 Belief Statements about Assessments

1. I believe incorporating feedback into assessments is vital.

In my classroom, I want students to understand why they are doing what they are doing,

and not just going through the motions. For this reason, I will be incorporating good

feedback in my grading to make sure students know why they might have missed

something. Math is a subject that tends to build upon itself, and having a weak foundation

can hinder any growth in upper levels of math. In this course, we talked about providing

feedback to students and grading, and it really stuck with me. Good feedback involves

addressing areas for improvement and areas of success for students (Wormeli). This
 would be seen in the work I hand to me students to make sure they know what they can

improve on, but also what they did well.

2. I believe Formative Assessments are important in ensuring learning.

Learning about formative assessments this semester has opened my eyes to a different

kind of assessment that I was not aware existed as a student. Making sure students

understand the material before they are formally assessed in a summative assessment is

important to both the students and the teacher (Wormeli). In my student teaching this

semester, I incorporated multiple formative assessments into my lesson plan and I was

able to truly see what concepts students were and weren’t getting, and adjust my teaching

accordingly. This is something I want to do in my classroom to ensure students

understand the material.

3. I believe in teaching to standards, not teaching to the test.

Teaching to the test is overall seen as a bad thin by many educators, students, and parents

(Wormeli). Although I don’t want to teach to the test, I want to make sure my students

are fairly assessed for the standards I will be covering in each unit. To do this, I will

create my tests prior to each unit to ensure that they meet the standards I will be

addressing. That way, my students know that their assessments are fair and everything on

the test will be covered in class, because they assess the standards. Working with the

common assessment in my PLT gave me great insight on how to do this, and I will

incorporate it into my class.

4. I believe in eliminating bias in assessing students.

In my class, I want students to be assessed fairly. Fair assessment does not look the same

for every student (Wormeli). Because of this, I will ensure that each student who needs to
 be assessed differently to show mastery and understanding has the ability to be. I will

accomplish this in my classroom by modifying assessments as necessary for students, and

not using examples that some of my students may not understand as well as others. I

believe everyone should have a chance to learn and be fairly assessed, no matter their

background.

5. I believe in more than just paper and pencil exams.

Paper and pencil exams may not be the best option for every student to show that they

have understanding of the material (Wormeli). Some students may have test anxiety or

just don’t test well. Because of that I want to provide other options for students to

demonstrate learning, mainly in terms of performance assessments or projects. This may

be a hard task for math, but I believe in providing that opportunity for those students to

demonstrate their understanding of the material and concepts covered in class. In my

classroom, I will try to assign at least one project per quarter to allow students to be

creative in a subject they may not have as much of a chance to be creative in.
Sample Syllabus

Grades in this class will be broken down as follows:

Tests – 60%

Projects – 15%

Quizzes – 10%

Homework Completion – 10%

Homework Accuracy – 5%

Tests and projects bear the majority weight of the grade. This is important because these are the

components that show student mastery of each subject. On the other side of that, quizzes and

homework are a relatively low percentage. While learning the material, I want you as students to

not be afraid to make mistakes. I will be providing as much feedback as possible to ensure that

you as students are growing and learning the material, and I don’t want bad quiz grades when

you are learning the material to severely impact your overall grade. There is no participation

grade, but I expect you to be active in each class. You will not learn the material otherwise, and

will not do well in the class. I will be collecting all homework for the unit on the day of the

exam, and grading specific questions for accuracy. Because of that, Homework will not be

accepted late. The school has a 3 day grace period for exams and quizzes which I follow, and

projects may be turned in late for 10 points off per day late. We are on the standard 10-point

scale:

90-100 = A, 80-89 = B, 70-79 = C, 60-69 = D, 0-59 = F.

I wish you luck and success in this class!

Conclusion

My philosophy involves the cycle of assessment and making assessments far to all students. This

isn’t something I noticed happening as a student, and is something I want to ensure happens in

my classroom. It is beneficial to students to have feedback and formative assessments

incorporated into their daily assignments, and is something I wish I had seen more of when I was

in school. ED 311 and 312 have helped greatly to shape my Philosophy of Assessment, and have

allowed me to grow in my thoughts and beliefs as a pre-service teacher.

Sources

Wormeli, Rick. Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing & Grading in the Differentiated Classroom.

Stenhouse Publishers, 2018.