Assessment is essential to create an education tailor to fit the needs of every student.

Diagnostic
assessment is the first form a teacher uses with a student. This assessment is given to evaluate the
student's prior knowledge. It needs to be evaluated where a student is to help them nurture their skills.
Foe example, when enrolling at Pima Community College, the first thing you do is take a placement
exam for reading, writing, and math. This is so the school can recommend which classes will best fit
your needs as a student. They also make the recommendation of classes to take as refreshers, if you
have just made the next class up. If students do not receive diagnostic assessment, it is impossible to
create an educational plan for the class if the prior knowledge of all students is not established.
Formative assessment is similar to diagnostic assessment. It provides the teacher with
information as to where the students are academically. The difference from diagnostic is that this form
of assessment is ongoing, and not just checking prior knowledge. This is the most frequent form of
assessment. It is not necessarily graded, with its main purpose being to evaluate understanding. If I
wanted to evaluate the knowledge obtained from my lesson with the skits portraying Beethoven's life, I
could ask students to create a timeline of his life. It would include major events in his career, personal
life, and what new ideas he applied to his music.
Summative assessment is very popular among teachers, and unfortunately is used to determine
public school funding. Thanks to NCLB, standardized tests are the only form of assessment for entire
student population. Nevermind all the data showing the necessity of customized learning and
assessment, this one size fits all tests cause a lot of problems in schools today. Cultural bias, language
barrier, and poor test taking skills are only some of the reasons why standardized tests should not be the
only form of assessment.
Summative learning has an important place in the classroom. My favorite form of it is a student
portfolio. There are many possibilities for the portfolio including making a book with illustrations that
is a summation of knowledge from the semester or school year. It can include a compile of student's
work and evaluation such as rubrics and checklists. Having students edit which of their work is quality
helps them work on their editing and self evaluation. This is a vital skill and all aspects of knowledge.
Knowing where you are with life goals and knowledge goals allows you to improve wherever needed.
This module was a wonderful tool for explaining the many aspects of assessment. It is important to
remember that ELLs are sensitive about the mistakes they make. Though on the spot corrections are
useful in learning the language, it is often humiliating for the student and makes them fear public
speaking. A better way to approach educating the student on their mistake would to have a grammer
review that covers a concept the student may have missed, but doesn't make the student feel singled
out.
When it comes to testing students with disabilities, modifications must be made. For example, tests
come in braille, larger print, and can highlight key words. This is a necessary measure to take for
assessing ELLs with disabilities. Every student must have an equal opportunity to take the test without
the hindrance of an ailment to accurately measure their content knowledge.
The first question I had is regarding NCLB. Every teacher has always spoken of the damage it
has caused because of poor assessment. What is being done to reform these laws? Are there groups of
teachers and administration gathering data of the results of this legislature?
My second question is regarding regional dialect and standardized tests. Do they make
standardized tests by regions to incorporate for this issue? I remember in Italian the different dialects
looked like a completely different language with a lot of new vocabulary.