The role of assessment in my literacy classroom is to inform instruction. There are two types of assessments to use in order to collect data and analyze what is collected in order to see what and where students need more instruction.
- The first type of assessment is formative. Formative assessment refers to types of assessments that change what we do in that moment. Students should be formally assessed before, during, and after instruction. Giving students pre-assessments before teaching a lesson allows you as the teacher to see what students already know and where to begin teaching. For example, testing students on what they know about fractions will give you information on what students already know about fractions and what they still need to learn. Giving students formative assessments throughout the lessons allows you to track how the lesson is going. For example, as you teach the lesson, you can ask students a question about what you just taught and ask them to give a thumbs up if they understand or a thumbs down if it is still unclear. This total participation technique allows you to quickly assess how the lesson is going and how you will progress with the rest of the lesson. Giving students a formative assessment after lessons allows you to see if they understood the concepts taught, if you need to make small strategy groups to go over specific topics covered, or if you need to re-teach the lesson in another way the following day.
- The second type of assessment is summative assessment. Summative assessment refers to evaluating students at the end of a unit and comparing their progress to benchmarks or standards. Summative assessments can be tests, group projects, etc. They allow you to see what the student understood about the unit and if you reached your objective for the unit.