The Role of Assessment in Teaching

As the first official blog post, I wanted to begin by highlighting some of the important ideas about the role that, according to my beliefs, assessments should play in teaching. While there is not one assessment that works well with all units, lessons, or populations of students, there are certainly assessments that serve purposes based on various objectives and learning goals that teachers set prior to teaching. As McMillan explains in her text, "The right kind of assessment, and the manner in which it is integrated with teaching, can have dramatic effects on how much is learned and how well something is performed" (p. 2). As we, as teachers, design a wide variety of assessments for our students, we must keep in mind that all assessments must not only provide us with information, but support and enhance student learning as much as possible.

As a pre-service teacher, I can imagine that reality of the world of teaching, despite my preparation and experience, is going to be chaotic and hectic when I first enter into it. Teaching is fast-paced, demanding, and very complex; decisions are made ALL the time through interactions. McMillan explains that teachers make anywhere between 1000 and 1500 interactions per day! Because of this, assessment is crucial in the process of decision making. In order to best meet the needs of students while consistently challenging them, teachers need to know what students already know, what they are learning, and what they still need to know. To find out this information about students, teachers should be using preassessments (prior to teaching to find out what students already know), formative assessments (during teaching to monitor progress, give feedback, and guide future instruction), and summative assessments (after assessments to find out what students have learned and can do). It is through these forms of assessment that assessment and teaching drive and guide one another.

Lastly, I wanted to discuss the importance of authenticity of assessments and the value of feedback. Whenever possible, assessments should be created in such a way that they focus on knowledge and skills that are "exhibited in real-life settings outside school that depict the student's best performance" (p. 16). This is because, as students feel that assessments are authentic and realize their importance to learning, they become more motivated. So how do teachers create authentic assessments? Teachers can create authentic assessments by involving students in the assessment-creating process. This process includes writing questions, asking questions along the way, and evaluating their own and the work of others. Students should also be provided with feedback about their achievement and progress so that "assessment for learning becomes as important as assessment of learning" (p. 16). When assessment for learning occurs, students understand that their feedback is based on their ability to achieve goals (presented to them beforehand). Students also become responsible for their learning, confidence is built, engagement increases, and instruction can be adjusted according to assessments before, during, and after instruction occurs.

(By: Christie Attanasio, Sec. 1)