Instructional Coaching on Assessment Strategies

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Table of Contents

Summary
Two Forms of Assessment
Formative Assessment
Summative Assessment
Events for K-ESS3
Practical Scenario
Final Assessment
References

Summary

In addition to the learning process itself, assessment models play an essential role in the educational system. The ultimate goal of learning is not the usual transfer of knowledge but the achievement of a complete understanding of the material among students. Thus, in the pursuit of improved educational effectiveness, it is crucial to prioritize not the speed of a lesson or the quantity of material taught but the quality of understanding. Consequently, it is the task of the professional educator to design and optimize assessment systems to determine the level of comprehension of materials, both in group and individual formats. This project will discuss both the conceptual foundations of school assessment systems and specific practices. To be specific, the science discipline for grades K-3 has been chosen (NGSS, n.d.).

Two Forms of Assessment

It is paramount to recognize that assessment is not just about assigning a score for a completed task. On the contrary, the spectrum of assessment is much more comprehensive and includes the use of a wide variety of practices and techniques accumulated by dozens of generations of teachers and educators. However, irrespective of a particular format, assessment should meet the criteria of orderliness, systematicness, and descriptiveness. Objectivity is intentionally omitted here because, most often, assessment is a subjective expression of a teacher or students. The division according to the source of assessment is not accidental because this criterion allows classifying the variety of formats into formative and summative assessments.

Formative Assessment

This type of assessment is more contingent because it is not recorded on a report card or in notebooks. Terminologically, formative assessment is an assessment that is administered continuously by the student’s teacher. This type tends to be used in everyday practice to provide feedback between students and the teacher (Knowles, 2020). The functionality of formative assessment is to track student performance at various stages and thus correct potential problems in a timely manner. A practical example of this type of assessment format would be a teacher’s worksheets assessing a student’s progress compared to earlier periods. At the same time, this type can be implemented through verbal encouragement or sanction. For example, the teacher may praise the student’s progress with words such as “Well done!” Punishing the student for learning errors can be done by saying, “You need to fix this!” or “I know you can do better!”

Summative Assessment

Another form of assessment is summative, which uses a point or mark system. Summative assessment is usually the final assessment for a particular unit or semester. Whereas formative assessment is responsible for identifying learning progress, summative assessment, by contrast, indicates outcome (Weafer, 2020). With this format, only the teacher has a central role. Summative assessments can take forms such as written tests (for multiple-choice testing), thematic tests, exams, or summative assessments. A report card with a set of marks or points is a practical embodiment of summative assessment. Such a report card confirms and consolidates a cross-section of knowledge and can provide a link between the teacher, students, and family.

Events for K-ESS3

The three activities created to increase student engagement and build interest in science include the following. The first involves a cooperative game in which each student has to guess any animal or plant he or she likes best. The student goes to the center of the class and describes the chosen species so that the other children guess. The second activity is a game of chance: each student places cards with their animal or plant in a shared box. The box is shuffled, and each child pulls out a card with the text. The trainee’s tasks at this stage include using the new card, guessing its classic habitat. The third activity involves an individual mini-presentation, during which the child talks about his or her guesses about the habitat based on the needs that the species has.

Practical Scenario

A sample scenario for such a lesson, which requires about 40-60 minutes to complete, follows the following scheme. The teacher sits the children at their desks and gives them blank paper cards and pens. Each child has about two minutes to write any animal or plant on the card. After that time, the student is invited into the center to describe his or her choice to the whole class: the class must guess it in half a minute – if time is up, the student tells everyone the answer. The next three minutes are required for each student to put their card in the box and pick up a new one from the shuffled box. Children have about one minute to come up with habitat for the species. Once time is up, each child is invited back to the classroom center to talk about their guesses.

Final Assessment

An example of a final assessment that fits perfectly with the chosen instructional format is an individualized mini-test at the end of the lesson. Since everyone in the class cannot be expected to be able to read, another format must be sought (Chandler-Grevatt, 2020). Specifically, the test could be implemented through each student’s correlation of paper illustrations of an animal and its habitat. To do this, the learner has a comprehensive map with natural areas (forest, lake, air, city, soil) and several animals on the table: the kid’s tasks are to correctly correlate these using their knowledge and the results of the lesson. To prevent plagiarism, each student has unique animals. Each student is graded on a U.S. grading system for correctly completing the correlation.

References

Chandler-Grevatt, A. (2020). Writing effective questions for formative assessment. RSC. Web.

Knowles, J. (2020). Teachers’ essential guide to formative assessment. CSE. Web.

NGSS. K-ESS3 earth and human activity. (n.d.). NG Science Standards. Web.

Weafer, D. (2020). From the blog. GSP. Web.

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