Module 6 Exploratory
M-ARC Program Outcome 6: Assess Student Learning
*This exploratory should take no more than 15 minutes to read. Be sure you complete this lesson no later than 6:30 on Tuesday, February 12 so that you're prepared to partcipate in the 6:30-8:00 virtual session.*
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Session 6 Learning Goals
- Become familiar with what assessment is and the various formats of assessment.
- Review effective formative assessment strategies
- Review best practices related to assessments
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Understand the technique called Reject Self-Report
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As you know by now, assessment is ongoing and assessment should be happening all the time in your classroom. Whether it's formative or summative Links to an external site., informal or formal Links to an external site., all interactions with students are an opportunity for you to assess your students.
So, what exactly is assessment?
Assessment is:
- Gathering information about student understanding and progress toward learning objectives
- Using that information to:
- Provide feedback to students to guide their growth and progress toward learning objectives
- Adapt instruction to meet student needs
- Measure student achievement and growth
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Effective Formative Feedback
When considering student feedback, consider the following strategies to make formative feedback most effective:
- Be specific
- Be positive
- Be immediate
- Target on specific (taught) outcomes
- Allow students time to process and revise work
Click here to read more Links to an external site. on these strategies (optional).
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When planning, consider the following best practices related to assessments:
- Create your summative assessment at the beginning of your unit planning (backwards design)
- Administer your summative assessment as a pre-assessment before you begin teaching a unit. This will allow you to tailor your unit to what your student's already know/don't know.
- Create rubrics while unit planing and intentionally share the rubrics with students before administering the assessment. Have students peer review using the rubrics.
- Design a way to track data along the way in a unit.
- Plan various forms of formative assessment.
- Provide graded rubrics and/or other assessment tools back to students so that students are aware of their progress and what to improve on.
- Consider systems that allow for immediate feedback instead of formally grading everything. Consider this: Individuals given immediate feedback show greater increases in performance and understanding compared to feedback the following day.
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Next, we will review an important best practice known as Reject Self-Report. Reject Self-Report is technique #1 in Teach Like A Champion 2.0, so if it's the first technique you know it is imperative!
Technique #1: Reject Self Report: Replace functionally rhetorical questions with more objective forms of impromptu assessment.
Read the following pages on Self-report:
Watch this 3 minute video that showcases reject self-report:
Many (if not all) teachers commonly ask, "Got it?" or "Right?". So we challenge you to be more mindful of how you're framing your questions and reject self-report!
Required readings/videos:
Formative vs. Summative Assessment: What's the Difference? Links to an external site.
Links to an external site.Formal vs. Informal Assessments Links to an external site.
Reject Self-Report Links to an external site.
Optional readings/resources: