I took away a ton of great ideas from the textbook, Classrooms That Work by Allington and Cunningham, as I was reading about assessment. I loved how the textbook provided exact copies of charts and checklists that can be used for assessment purposes. Finding appropriate ways to assess students can be a very difficult task for new teachers, but I feel that the textbook provided very useful tips. One assessment that really stood out to me was the writing assessment. The article says to have students write about a prompt in the first week of school, middle of the year and end of the year. Then, the students analyze their progress as writers and gain confidence from seeing the progress they have made. This reminded me a lot of the Reading and Me assessment in one of the earlier chapters of the book. I also liked the idea of assessing students' attitudes and interests towards reading frequently during the year in order to provide them with the best possible individual assistance.
How do you think we as teachers can make sure to continuously assess our students on an individual level rather than only assessing them once at the beginning of the year because there is not enough time in a school day?
Here is a cute idea for assessing a student's reading material
http://acrucialweek.blogspot.com/2011/08/assessment-linky-party.html
I also loved the fact that we can just copy the examples from the book to use in our future classroom. I do not like the idea of doing assessments just as Monica said in class because I feel like it would scare the child and he or she would not do as well. Although I know that assessments are necessary, I want to make sure...especially on reading assessments that the child does not know he or she is being assessed. I want to see the child's full potential, not the outcome of a child under pressure of an upcoming assessment.
ReplyDeleteI also think when students assess themselves and are able to see their own progress they will feel more successful and confident. I think once we are in the classroom and working with the same kids everyday we will be able to use our own judgements and observations as assessment. Formal assessments are good for documentation of progress, but as an ongoing assessment I think teachers should just talk with their students and have their students demonstrate the skills for them.
ReplyDeleteI will have to check out the chapter on assessment from the book! It sounds like it has a lot of great information. i worry that when I become a new teacher I won't have a clue what to do, but prompts like what are in the book would be a tremendous help during my first year!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Perri about using our own judgments/observations as assessment throughout the year. With thirty kids in a class, it would be difficult to continually assess each child. Making notes about what is observed or heard is a great way to keep up with the progress of children's abilities.
This book is a keeper! Most of my books I am selling back as soon as possible. I think regular assessment is important as well. I have been interested in what Monica referred to as a student conference where she meets individually with each student to talk about what they are reading or writing. The assessment does not have to be a high pressure structured test but use one of the techniques suggested in the book or class and keep the results. I think at least once every 6 weeks might be a good goal.
ReplyDelete