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Lauren MacKenzie
for either better, or worse. I believe that in order for assessment to be successful, it must not only
be an assessment of what the student has learned, but also as a way to inform myself as a teacher
as to how I can better educate the students, and as an accountability tool for students to measure
their own learning. Moreover, it is essential to include a variety of sources from which I am
pulling my assessment, and to make sure students have an active role in their own education
Although there are many ways to assess a student’s progress and learning in the
classroom, all of these break down in to formative and summative assessment, both of which are
important and have distinct places in the classroom. Previously, I had understood that the
majority of assessment was done in the form of paper and pencil, however, I know now that the
majority of intel a teacher receives is in fact through their own eyes. Formative assessment is the
initial way that I will determine if students are not only understanding what I am teaching them,
but are enjoying their education. Ideally, I would like to assess students in a way that they are
unaware that I am assessing them as to relieve stress and pressure and create a realistic setting
for optimal results. Ways in which I have included formative assessment and plan to continue to
summative assessment is not worth deeming as irrelevant, because although minimal, it does
serve a purpose in the classroom. However, I believe the important part of summative
assessment is how you “grade” it, what you do with the information and what you will do next. It
is important to note what the students got right and not wrong when checking to see what
answers the student wrote and to be “specific and descriptive” (Davies, A., 2017). Then, as
opposed to simply leaving the summative assessment in a folder to show that a student is unable
to do something, I would conference with the student, see where the issue is and use it as an
opportunity to work on whatever the issue is. Overall, my goal is to base the majority of my
teaching practices on formative assessments and put less emphasis on summative assessment in
an elementary classroom.
In addition to the different types of assessment, I believe that as learners, students have
the right and an obligation to be involved in their own education and take responsibility for their
learning. I know that “when students are involved in their own assessment, mistakes become
feedback they can use to adjust what they are doing” (Davies, A., 2017) and allows students to
use assessment as learning. Initially, I imagined this being done at a high school level where
students would tell the teacher what grade they thought they deserved, or co-created a rubric.
However, I have come to realize that even something as simple as conferencing with students
and creating a list as a class of what students expect of themselves can be excellent ways to
an environment in which students feel safe to be vulnerable with their work and be honest in
what they want for their personal learning and education goals.
As a whole, assessment is a triangulation that provides students with the best possible
assessment feedback by obtaining it from multiple sources. Ideally, this would be done through
conversations, observations and products created by the student. It is essential that sources of
assessment of learning are collected from multiple sources over a wide time period to “make a
decision regarding whether and to what degree, students know, understand, can apply, and can
articulate what is detailed by the standards or learning outcomes” (Herbst, S. & Davies, A.,
2016). If all the proof of learning you collect from a student comes from one type of assessment
from one point in time, it is possible that the student was unable to perform to their best ability in
that one style of assessment, and it is also possible that they have since then met the curriculum
outcome.
Through my learning process of assessment and evaluation, I know realize how important
and essential it is to provide students with multiple ways of representing their learning and that
students don’t always feel as though they are going to receive a grade or a giant red “X” for
trying whether they were successful or not. It is important for students to understand that
learning can come from failure, and unless we use all of the previously mentioned methods of
assessment, we will be assessing with a pencil and paper and be writing bright red “X”s that are
negatively impacting student’s learning. The overall goal of my assessment strategies are to
inform myself as well as the student whether or not the concept is being understood, and if not,