Assessments play an important role in education. In the early years it it important to continuously be assessing students grown in their foundational skills, such as reading, writing and number sense, but the importance of assessment does not stop there.
I believe that assessment FOR learning is essential and should play an enormous role in the classroom. Assessment for learning might come in the form of verbal feedback in the moment, a TAG (Tell them something good, Ask them a give question, Give them some feedback) from a peer, or be a teacher note/question in a students notebook. I am firm believer in the "feed forward" movement, in that feedback needs to be specific and purposeful.
While I have utilised a variety of assessment tools and strategies in the classroom, students self-assessment and self-reflections has proven to be exceptional pieces of evidence to draw conclusions about their understanding.
Below is an example of students self-assessing their knowledge and skills after our fifth UOI of the year. This is the rubric used by ISNS teachers to assess students understanding at the end of an inquiry. At the end of each UOI after I have completed this rubric, I return it to them so they can set goals and see how they can improve. In April, students had the opportunity to share their own perspective regarding their successes and challenges during our inquiry into structures. The accuracy and thought that the students put into each mark they gave themselves reflects the importance of having students be involved in how they are assessed.
Central idea: People use a variety of strategies to solve different number operations in their daily lives.
Assessment Strategy: Open-Ended Task Assessment tool: Single-Point Rubric (created by teacher + students) To demonstrate their learning during our inquiry in math, students were asked to explain why we use each number operation, and give a real-world example. After completing their assessment, they passed it in for teacher feedback. I assessed their work and returned it to them. Students were then given a second opportunity to show their learning my reflection on their weaknesses and improving how they communicated their knowledge. The purpose of this SA was not for students to demonstrate what they didn't know, but to show off what their did learn throughout the year in number sense. I felt this assessment was purposeful, effective and was easily differentiated to meet the needs of the different learners in my class. |
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