Educators implement effective planning, instruction, assessment and reporting practices to create respectful, inclusive environments for student learning and development.
In my fall 2020 practicum, I set myself goals of planning for reliable, accurate assessment. This was informed by our assessment course, where I learned about the importance of formative feedback, the critical nature of clarity of expectations, and the increasing trend of going gradeless. I began the four-week practicum by mostly conducting formative assessment, through observation, one-on-one conferencing, and verbal and written feedback. As I progressed through the practicum, I set additional goals to conduct summative assessment in ways that reflected the learning we had done in our Assessment and Motivation course. At the end of a mini-unit on money and decimals, I assessed my students’ learning by asking them to continue what they had practiced over and over throughout the past week and a half. I asked them to tell me what they had learned about money and decimals, and then to use their play coins to create a mathematical problem on their whiteboards. They grouped coins together, drew a plus sign and an equals sign, and then solved the problem. This allowed them to demonstrate what they knew, and also allowed me to assess their proficiency within the learning continuum. I asked them to do what they had practiced several times, and what I had set out each day as a learning goal. They were universally confident in completing the assessment. I sat with each student and assessed them individually, noting their proficient or developing skills for each section of the assessment, and then photographed their whiteboard as evidence for my coaching teacher. They were allowed to demonstrate creativity and agency within the assessment, and it was reflective of what they had learned in the unit. I was pleased with the way I connected the assessment to the learning standards and goals that had been shared with the students throughout the unit. There was a clarity of expectations and an alignment of learning. In the future, I will continue to plan for meaningful assessments, and strive to set out the assessment plans at the outset of the units.
