Standard 8: Assessment
Description: “The teacher understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the learner.”
Reflection: Assessment is the cornerstone of education. Without it there would be no way of knowing whether or not education took place. Unfortunately in the current education system too much weight is put on one type of assessment and not enough on other types. The assessment our current system is built on are Formal Assessment, particularly high stakes testing. Often pre-assessments and informal assessments are are forgotten about or ignored. The importance of assessment is that it drives instruction. So if you only use Formal assessments like Culminating projects, chapter tests, and regents to assess learning then you are only finding out what students learned after you taught it. There is little or no time to go back and teach them again or develop a new way of teaching it till the next group of students come through. By using pre-testing and informal assessment during the teaching process, teachers will know immediately after they taught material whether or not students understood it. This gives teachers the ability to work with the students to help them better understand the material prior to the formal assessments. It help set up both teachers and students for success.
Evidence: I am currently taking an Adolescent Literacy class in Assessment and Intervention. This class has been focused on how to use assessment as a tool to teach more effectively. It has been a great class because I has really revealed to be a very logical use of all forms of assessment in order to achieve student learning and help me master my profession.
