Sindi Sheth

Assessment Techniques

Pre-instructional Formative Summative

Pre-instructional
Assessment is used at the
beginning of a class of unit
to determine what
knowledge students may
already have about a given
topic. From this assessment
an instructor can then
“proceed with the most
effective instruction. It is
considered part of good
teaching practice to find out
prior to instruction the level
of knowledge and skill that
is present in the learner.”1
Formative Assessments are
done throughout a program
or class and provide a
teacher with immediate
feedback and enable on to
make changes to improve
the instruction promptly.
“The purpose of this
technique is to improve
quality of student learning
and should not be
evaluative or involve
grading students.”2
Summative Assessments are
done at the end of a section
or class. They are used to
provide the teacher with a
comprehensive view of the
students understanding. It
also allows the teacher to
determine if “students have
met the program goals and
objectives.”2

1
http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/policy/studeval/chap1003.html
2
http://academicaffairs.cmich.edu/caa/assessment/resources/toolkit/FormativeandSummat
iveAssessment.doc

Rubrics
Throughout my teaching courses whenever I developed a teaching plan I would have to
record the student aims. (i.e. Assignment-Matching game, Aim-Students will successfully
match 4 out 6 pairs.) Knowing ahead of time the success rate I wished to achieve
allowed me to gauge the success of the previous vocabulary session. If the students met
the required scoring then I knew the technique was working. This gave me confidence as
a student teacher. I feel that a rubric will do the same for a student. If the student knows
what the teacher is looking for and can review their work and tick off that they have each
element that appears in the rubric they can submit their assignment with confidence. Not
only will the rubric build confidence in the student, but it will allow me as a teacher to be
confident in my grading system and to know that I am grading all papers equally.
At the website, http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods-and-
management/rubrics/4522.html, they give a really nice a relatable example of a rubric
outline which I am including here:
Chocolate chip cookie rubric
The cookie elements the students chose to judge were:
* Number of chocolate chips
* Texture
* Color
* Taste
* Richness (flavor)
Here's how the table looks:

Delicious Good Needs Poor

Improvement
Chocolate chip Chips in about Chocolate in Too few or too
Number of
in every bite 75% of bites 50% of bites many chips
Chips
Chewy Chewy in Texture either Texture
Texture
middle, crisp on crispy/crunchy resembles a dog
edges or 50% biscuit
uncooked
Golden brown Either dark Either dark Burned
Color
from brown from
overcooking or overcooking or
light from light from
being 25% raw undercooking
Home-baked Quality store- Tasteless Store-bought
Taste
taste bought taste flavor,
preservative
aftertaste –
stale, hard,
chalky
Richness Rich, creamy, Medium fat Low-fat Nonfat contents
high-fat flavor contents contents

Bet you’re hungry for a cookie now aren’t you????