Standard 5. Assessment in a Multi-racial, Multicultural Democracy.

Educators should understand that assessment is an integral part of teaching, and that
children’s developmental and academic interests, accomplishments, and challenges should
drive their daily instructional decisions. They should know that various types of assessments,
including self-assessment, have different uses, advantages, limitations, and biases. They
should understand that appropriate assessment must consider the cultural, familial, and
community contexts from which children come. Educators should know how to use a variety of
formal and informal assessment tools and strategies to monitor and promote each student’s
learning and development; use both formative and summative assessments to determine
students’ understanding in each subject area; and be aware of technological tools that can
facilitate assessment.

Assessment is an important part of teaching, it fully allows us as teachers to see exactly

what our students have learned. Through my time at Wheelock every course I have taken I have

learned about assessment. I have learned assessment at its most basic forms but I have also

been fortunate enough to learn about assessment from a performing arts perspective.

However, whatever form of assessment a teacher may use there is always the chance of biases.

As teachers it should be our goal to make the assessments as fair and unbiased as possible. This

may include providing accommodations for students in need. Some teachers might see

accommodations as an advantage. But, I personally think making students who need

accommodations take the text without them is unfair advantage to the other students because

those students need the accommodations to show us what they know to the best of their

abilities.

The two biggest forms of assessment we have learned is formative and summative

assessments. Formative assessment is the assessment that happens more frequently during a

unit of study. Teachers use formative assessment to gage where students are so they can alter

the lessons going forwards. Formative assessments are most popularly in the form of exit

tickets. Exit tickets typically happen at the end of a lesson and depending on how students
respond impacts the next day’s lesson. Summative assessment is used to show student’s

cumulative learning. This because they come at the end of the unit and they tend to be longer

as well as hold higher stakes for the students than formative. Summative usually comes in the

form of a test. Tests the come at the end of a unit and asks questions that pertain to the

students learning along the way. Summative assessment can also be beneficial to teachers

because they can look back on the questions and areas students still struggled with and make

sure to ether review it with them afterwards or make a note and revamp how they teach it the

following year. (Templeton, S., & Gehrman, K. M. 2014)

Surprisingly, in my Movement and Drama for Children class we also talked about

assessment. Before this class I was unaware of using movement as a form of assessment. There

was a chapter that talked about how as teachers we can use Kinesthetic movements as a form

of assessment. Teachers now are constantly trying to figure out how to assess students

differently other than using a test or quiz. Kinesthetic assessment would be a great idea for

teachers because having students move around and show their understanding can be just as

effective as a test or quiz. Kinesthetic assessments can show student's knowledge,

comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis. As a future teacher I always assumed that

kinesthetic assessment would be best used in comprehension on a story but this chapter

offered great examples on how to incorporate it into other lessons. Another part of the chapter

is self-assessment and group critique. This section reminded me a lot about one of the videos I

watched for class. In the video the teacher talked about the importance of feedback. Self-

reflection is a great form of feedback because you get to reflect back on how you personally

think the kinesthetic performance went. As well as critiquing to what did or did not work for
you. Group Critique is so important especially in the arts. It is important to have someone

watch and critique you so they can make sure that the message you are trying to get across is

being seen. Plus peers can share ideas and opinions you wouldn't be able to come up with on

your own. (Griss, S. 1998)

Artifact 1: Reading Session M7: Holding onto the Mystery Even When the Book is long and
Tricky with exit ticket

This is a lesson I taught during at my practicum. This lesson was in the middle of our

mystery reading unit so I decided to use an exit ticket as a way to gage where the students

were before continuing on with the other lessons. I believe my exit ticket was a good one

because it was unbiased based on my students’ needs. All the students are reading different

books so instead of having them write about a specific moment in a certain book I asked them

to retell me what they have had spent the class time reading. This way I can make sure they are

including all the important elements of retelling vs specific details of a story. Comparing the two

exit tickets (included In actual artifact) it is clear that one student has gained a better

understanding of how to retell than the other. However that student wasn’t alone. Those

students should know up to this point that they retell in full sentences. The following lesson I

was able to review that concept and I saw an improvement in the next time I asked them to

retell information.

Artifact 2: Teaching Reading Assessment Report

During teaching reading we were assigned a focus child at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

School in Cambridge. The student I am placed with is names Kai (pseudonym). He is an African

American boy in the third grade that really likes reading. During this visit together I
administered a DRA which is a form of reading assessment. The Developmental Reading

Assessment (DRA) is an individually administered assessment of a child’s reading capabilities. It

is a tool to be used by instructors to identify a student’s reading level, accuracy, fluency, and

comprehension. I believe this artifacts works for this standard because after the assessment I

had to write up my findings create a plan moving forward for what I wanted to work with Kai

on. The attached artifact is the write up I created with my plan to better improve Kai’s reading.

Artifact 3: MLE 301 Observation 2-Magnet Assessment

During MLE 301 once again we had to work with focus children from the Baldwin Early

Learning Center. This was actually our second time visiting the school so the purpose of this

second observation was to get to know the student a little bit better and study their second

language acquisition. The student I am placed with is Derek (pseudonym). Derek is in the first

grade and has the English language development level of 4, which is expanding. During this visit

I administered an assessment that required Derek to name the images on the magnet as well as

place them where I told him to. This assessment gave me a look inside Derek’s expressive and

receptive vocabulary. I really enjoyed this assessment because it was very hands on for Derek

versus it being a formal test with just questions and nothing tactile for him to work with.

In conclusion, this standard has only strengthened what I have learned over the last four

year here at Wheelock. Teachers need to use assessments to gage their students learning. But

,before Wheelock I though tests were the only form of assessments. Now I have learned that
exit tickets and even kinesthetic movements are great forms of assessment. I’m excited to

explore different forms of assessment for once I get my own classroom.

References:

Griss, S ( 1998), Minds in Motion. Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH

Templeton, S., & Gehsmann, K. M. (2014). Teaching Reading and Writing: The Developmental
Approach. Boston: Pearson.