|
A primary purpose of assessment is to give teachers and educational staff information or feedback on what and how well their students are learning. There are several ways to obtain this information. These include:
Classroom Assessment
When we clearly understand the objectives or behaviors we want our students to achieve, we can then develop simple or more complex types of classroom assessment. Observation is one important type of assessment. We observe to determine whether students can identify or do the desired behaviors. Questioning, simple written exercises, projects, tasks, and more formalized types of tests are important ways we can learn more about what is being learned, by whom, and how well.
School or District Assessments
Schools or districts may use assessments to track the progress of student learning goals. For example, reading progress might be assessed at two or three points during the year to monitor the progress of student learning. An advantage of these assessments is that teachers and staff can usually obtain feedback quickly and make corrections before the end of the year.
State/National Assessments
State and national assessments are important to school staff, but they also serve an important function of accountability. States have the responsibility of ensuring that the learning needs of all students are being met. State and national assessments provide information as to how well a single state or collection of states is doing. The results can be useful to local schools over time, but it is seldom possible to apply the feedback quickly.
The following video will give you further information.
|
