INTASC 6. Assessment 

The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learner’s decision making.

 

     It is critical for a social studies teacher to use multiple methods of assessment to assess whether a student is learning. I believe it is important for a teacher to use a combination of multiple choice, fill in the blank, True/False, short answer, short essay, term papers, and projects. It is also important not just for teachers to incorporate those types of summative assessments, but it is vital for teachers to incorporate formative assessments into instruction as well. If a teacher cannot effectively formatively assess students, it is likely students will struggle on summative assessments, SOLs, and not learn anything valuable from the class. Formative assessments that a teacher can use include questioning, practice worksheets, review games and Exit Slips. All of these methods of formative assessment are very easy to plan for and implement in class. Teachers that provide good formative assessment have a better chance of designing strong formative assessments, students doing well on SOLs, and students being able to apply what they learned to their lives.

     During my time in the education program I learned how to design strong formative and summative assessments. Particularly in the Assessing Student Achievement class I took in the Fall is where I learned good strategies for designing good assessments. In that class I completed a Test Construction Project in which I had to design a test with multiple forms of assessment and explain my rationale for what I did (See Evidence 1). It was a good learning experience that I carried into my internship in the Spring. In the Spring I ended up designing two quizzes during the Westward Expansion Unit (See Evidence 2 and 3). I prepared the students well for the two quizzes and most of my classes got A’s or B’s on those quizzes. I also feel I might have made the questions too easy so I decided for the Westward Expansion test to use a standardized forty question multiple choice assessment, similar to what my cooperating teacher used for other units. I thought this assessment would be a tougher evaluation of what they had learned during the unit and also help prepare them for their SOL test. It was a good decision as the class average for the test was a B, and the test was a fair assessment of what I had taught during the unit.

     I did not give my classes in the Spring many writing assignments as a form of assessment due to the fact their writing skills are not as developed as high school students. The one higher order thinking assessment I gave the class during the Spring was the Invention Project, and they were able to complete that in groups (See Evidence 4). I also scaffolded that project by giving students a slip of paper with the information they had to include in their project. During the Fall and especially the Spring I also incorporated different methods of formative assessment into my instruction. On numerous occasions throughout the year I would ask students questions throughout the lessons to see if they understood what I had taught or to assess prior knowledge. I would give students worksheets and activities to complete to formatively assess their progress. I also used review activities like the US Geography review on the Smart board and review games before test to formatively assess student progress. I also handed out exit slips on a couple of occasions to assess what students had learned from the class period or the week.

     In the future I will continue to work on designing effective formative and summative assessments that help my students learn. I will have to find the balance between designing quizzes and test that are not too easy for students, but not too hard for them either. It will also be important for me to continue to design assessments that force students to work together and use higher order thinking skills. If I teach high school in the future, I will incorporate more essay tests and term papers for assessing student learning.

 

Evidence