Assessments are a way to determine student knowledge of the content material. They can also be used to assess students’ prior knowledge before starting a unit. Teachers must be able to design effective assessments to help them understand how well a student understood the content and see the areas that still need improvement. Assessments can include formative assessment, summative assessments, and evaluating student work .
Formative Assessment
Formative assessments are used during a unit to gauge if students are gaining knowledge of the content material. Formative assessments can also tell teachers when they may need to adjust a lesson if certain needs are not being met. Formative assessments help teachers guide a lesson to students’ interests and needs; they can include quizzes, small projects, warm up questions, and homework. I commonly use warm up questions as a review of the material covered in the previous class. The questions allow me to gauge how much the students understood and retained the material, and it gives the class a chance to review when we go over the answers.
Pre-assessments are another type of formative assessment. A pre-assessment is used to determine a student’s knowledge on a subject prior to starting the unit. They are helpful to understand strengths and weaknesses of a student and when to differentiate instruction. While at Cave Spring High School, I have students answer warm up questions on evolution as their pre-assessment.
Summative Assessments
Summative assessments are used to measure a student’s mastery of the content once the unit is complete. They can also be used to determine if the end goals and objectives were met. With the feedback teachers receive from these assessments, they can decide what changes to make for upcoming units and for future years. Teachers may also find things that worked well for their students and incorporate those into future lessons. Summative assessments can range from tests, presentations, and projects. I had my students at Cave Spring High School complete a test at the end of our evolution unit. A few pages of the test can be seen here.
Evaluating Student Work
Grading assignments gives teachers feedback on how well individual students are building knowledge. When developing and giving assignments, it is important to give clear direction and expectations so students understand the requirements. I made sure to have clear directions for each part of a classification worksheet I designed for my students. Rubrics should be made for projects, presentations, and essays. When students understand the requirements for an assignment, it allows them to complete work without confusion. Clear directions mean students can focus on understanding the content material and gives them the best opportunity to succeed. When grading my students’ work, I always try to give
positive feedback which may include checks, written praise, or smiley faces. I think it is very important that students feel their hard work is valued.