blog #8 students assessment

            Margret Heritage discusses the Race to the Top Assessment Program applications for next-generation assessment systems from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). She highlights each consortium’s narrow treatment of formative assessment and maintains that this lack of attention is a missed opportunity to formally incorporate and develop key teacher and student practices that foster teaching and learning in the classroom.

According to Margret Heritage effective formative assessment; reviews key studies, and describe how formative assessment is currently used in U.S. education. Heritage examines the theoretical and research base for formative assessment exploring topics such as teacher feedback and socio-cultural theories of learning, and presents recent definitions of formative assessment and implementation recommendations from international policy groups.  Overall, Heritage maintains that formative assessment is a process to support and guide teaching and learning, and those educators must fully understand the nature of formative assessment and its role in supporting teaching and learning to experience its benefits to education.  

During our class discussion or lesson I use Q&A so as to utilize what my students learn throughout the lesson. Using dry-erase boards has been a standard strategy in my classroom where I encourage consistent student engagement. Assessment is immediate with the use of a dry-erase board. When my students raise their boards during class to offer responses to a question or problem, I get on-the-spot information. I can see if my students are incorporating new knowledge, and which areas, if any, are presenting confusion. Depending upon my assessment of student understanding, I can instantly change the direction of my lesson or reteach a part of it. One of the main focus for my class is writing this is one the many lessons I assess my students using dry-erase board.

           

Language Arts: expanding sentences

This activity will encourage students to write fuller, richer sentences.

▪   First, have students write a simple sentence on their board—for example, “Damien

runs” or “Mary studies.”

▪   Then, pull one card at a time from a set of cards with the following words written on

    them: How? Where? When? With whom? Why?

▪   As you pull one card at a time from the box, direct students to erase and rewrite their

    sentence to include the new information.

▪   Have two or three students share their sentences after each rewriting.