Assessment is the big elephant in the room for me. When I think about my future classroom, I have no problem with all the lesson plans I will have to make and the activities to plan, what freaks me out is how I will assess that my students are learning. So far I have a solid understand on ways to pre-assess my students, using probes or discussions. Easy. The article did, however, give me some insight on different ways that I can go about assessing my students.
My favorite idea was the concept map assessment. I am a big fan of concepts maps so if I can use them to assess my students that would be one way to make it fun for me. The article did make a note about observational assessment that was interesting. "In elementary and middle grade classrooms with twenty to thirty students, teacher observations can easily be forgotten or associated with the wrong student." I never really considered this. I will probably always use observation assessment, but take the anecdotal records and checklists to make sure I am keeping track of what and who.
Then there is the formal test for assessment. In some cases I haven't been a fan of them. Mostly because I absolutely hate test. I get major anxiety so my goal for my future class is to provide and environment where tests wont stress students. Anyway, I like the insight the article gave me on this. For example, the benefits of using different types of questions. I will steer away from true/ false questions and questions that require low-level thinking.
Overall this article was super helpful. It is already saved in my science method folder. I think I might even do some of the portfolio ideas they suggested.
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