Guide To Assessments

Rubric for Assessing Student Writing
A rubric is a checklist used to evaluate what students have learned or accomplished. Teachers can take lesson objectives to form the basis of a rubric. The teacher should explain the rubric to the students before they begin a writing assignment. During their writing exercise, the students can refer to the rubric to guide what and how they write. After the students have completed their writing assignments, the teacher can then apply the rubric to assess their work, checking to see if they have met all of the learning objectives. Students will be less confused and frustrated when teachers have given them well-planned, clearly expressed guidelines. In addition to clearly stating their learning goals, objectives, and expectations for each assignment, teachers should model the kind of performance they expect.
Teachers should connect lesson and assignment goals obviously and clearly with student achievement.

Summative and Formative Assessments
Summative assessments evaluate what a student has learned at the end of a lesson, unit, course, or term. A final examination is an example of a summative assessment. Formative assessments are ongoing evaluations to demonstrate what a student is in the process of learning and what he or she has learned thus far. Formative assessments are not just for evaluation: they are also important for use in the classroom as a teaching tool. As teachers conduct ongoing evaluations via formative assessments, they should use both formal and informal assessment instruments. Teachers should never use the results of only one formal or informal assessment to form permanent student groups. They should only place students into groups after administering, scoring, and interpreting a number of different assessments.
Teachers should also create student groups that account for individual differences among the students in every group and should accordingly make these groups sufficiently flexible to accommodate individual student differences.

Observation
Observational assessment is appropriate for evaluating student progress and the effectiveness of instruction. A teacher can create a checklist of skills, requirements, or competencies that students should attain.
The teacher can then observe individuals or student groups and check off the skills or competencies demonstrated. For example, if a teacher has been instructing a class in listening carefully, he or she can compose a checklist with items such as paying attention, refraining from interrupting others, summarizing what ideas the other students have expressed, and asking questions of other students. The teacher can then initiate and observe student discussion, checking off the checklist items he or she observes the students performing. Or, when teaching interview skills, a teacher can make a checklist including confidence, personal appearance, mannerisms, and directly answering interviewer questions. He or she can also observe students participating in mock or real interviews and identify which items the students satisfy. B. observing students as they work on assignments or practice exercises, teachers can obtain valuable information. With kindergarten and first-grade classes, many school districts inform parents of children's progress by filling out 'report cards' or inventories. Through experience, long-term teachers typically develop their own methods of making ongoing skills assessments of their students. Books about reading instruction typically include informal reading assessments. Teachers should assess student progress in naturalistic ways on a continual basis. Teachers and parents continually observing students regarding their status and progress in the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social domains yields the most relevant assessment—particularly with young children. Portfolio and performance assessments provide a more complete picture of overall progress than standardized test scores alone. Additionally, writing narrative reports about young children depicts the whole child better than just giving them number or letter grades.

Observational Checklists
In informal assessment, using observational checklists to identify skills attained has an advantage over formal written tests because informal, naturalistic observation enables teachers to record behaviors that traditional written tests cannot include. For example, if teachers want to know whether students can follow all steps of a science experiment in the correct sequence, how many baskets they can make in free throws on the basketball court, or whether they can remember all of the significant parts to include in a speech they write and deliver to the class, they can record these by observing and marking such items on a checklist they have designed in advance—but they could not record any such behaviors through standard 'pencil-and-paper' tests. The structure of checklists has the advantage of being consistent, but also the disadvantage of being inflexible. Teachers can remedy the latter by including a place at the end of the checklist to write open-ended comments on their observations of student performance.

Running Record
To identify what students are able and unable to do, one informal assessment measure teachers can use is a running record. For example, the teacher can listen to a student reading aloud from text such as an essay, a speech, a novel, or a class subject textbook. While listening, the teacher marks a copy of the text to show words the student mispronounces. The teacher draws a line through each word the student skips and draws an arrow under words the student repeats. Teachers may also mark student hesitations at certain words. If the teacher then calculates that the student correctly read 95 percent of the words, the student reads this text at the 'Independent' level. If the student correctly reads 90-94 percent of the words, he or she reads this text at the 'Instructional' level, indicating satisfactory performance with teacher assistance. Correctly reading 89 percent or fewer words indicates the 'Frustration' level, where comprehension may be inadequate.
This group of assessment levels is also known as the reading continuum.

Anecdotal Records
Anecdotal records can provide good information for formative assessments. For example, when students conduct science experiments or complete class projects, teachers can use anecdotal records to instruct them in writing reports to explain the procedures they followed. When students in group learning activities solve a problem together, teachers can use anecdotal records to document the process used. Such anecdotal documents not only provide the teacher with formative assessment information, but teachers can also use them to give feedback to the group of students. Two disadvantages of using anecdotal records are that they can take more time for teachers to complete than other informal assessments and that they can be hard to use for assigning grades. Two advantages are that anecdotal records can encompass all pertinent information, whereas other assessments may not, and that teachers may use them only for giving students feedback, which eliminates the need to base grades on them.

Portfolio Assessment
In portfolio assessment, teachers or students create a folder or box and deposit a student's best work products, accumulated over time. In language arts, teachers often collect student writing samples in portfolios for a whole year. Some language arts teachers additionally transmit year-long portfolios to the following year's teacher to aid in student assessment. Teachers can use portfolio assessments in any subject to enable students to assume greater responsibility for planning, organizing, and implementing what they learn. The combined products in the portfolio afford concise depictions of what students have achieved during specific time periods.
Portfolios can include handwritten or printed essays, stories, and articles; videos; or computer files of multimedia presentations. Teachers should help students develop guidelines about which materials to place in portfolios, and how to self-assess their own work. The advantages of portfolios over tests include helping students develop self-assessment skills, giving clearer pictures of student progress, and learning from mistakes without the damage of a bad test grade.

Research-Based Assessment Techniques
To assess student knowledge of principles, rules, and procedures, teachers supply situations that require students to correctly apply these to everyday problems. Students are asked to state principles, rules, and procedures, and choose which apply to various scenarios.
To assess student scientific inquiry skills, teachers give problems or situations that require students to speculate, inquire, and formulate hypotheses.
Teachers should also give hands-on activities to conduct research and draw conclusions. To assess student thinking skills, teachers can ask students to give summaries of different kinds of thinking strategies.
Teachers can provide situations in which students must select the best thinking strategies to apply.
Teachers assign students to observe examples of open-mindedness versus closed-mindedness, accurate versus inaccurate, and responsible versus irresponsible applications of thinking methods.
Teachers can design scenarios requiring student persistence for analyzing and discovering answers, as well as application of thinking strategies in real-life circumstances.
To assess verbal knowledge, teachers require information recall, restatement, and comprehension.

Assessment of Student Learning
To assess student attitudes, educators can create various situations and observe and document their responses, requiring students to choose which behaviors to demonstrate. To assess cognitive strategies, teachers can give students learning tasks, require them to select useful strategies for learning new information independently, and expect them to explain and discuss what methods they use for different learning tasks. To assess student comprehension, teachers give them topics and ask them to restate and summarize information. Or, teachers may have students apply information in new contexts, such as giving statements with words that are different than those used in the original lesson and asking students to identify their meanings. To assess student concept understanding, teachers give students new examples and 'non-examples,' having students classify these into the right categories. To assess student creativity, teachers can give students new problems—including products, presentations, or performances—to study, resolve, or 'turn upside down.' They can also have students fit solutions and products into specified resources and functions and give them situations that require novel responses or approaches.

Assessment of Different Student Outcomes
To assess students' critical thinking, teachers can ask students to evaluate outcomes or information and have them perform research and analysis. To assess student insight, teachers should give students opportunities to engage in inquiry and discovery activities, and offer situations for them to manipulate. To assess student metacognition, teachers should give a variety of problems or situations to address, and assign students to identify different kinds of thinking strategies for analysis and evaluation of their own thought processes. To assess multiple intelligences (Gardner), teachers should give students learning experiences in each of the modalities they target, like verbal, musical, and physical. They should offer students choices of several different modalities. They should also require students to perform in the modalities selected. To assess motor skills, teachers must supply resources and situations in which students can perform the skills while the teachers evaluate, using checklists. To assess problem-solving, teachers ask students to choose appropriate strategies to solve different problem situations including simple, complex, structured, and unstructured.

Assessment of Procedural Knowledge, Scientific Inquiry, Thinking Skills, and Verbal Knowledge
To assess student knowledge of principles, rules, and procedures, teachers supply situations that require students to correctly apply these to everyday problems. Students are asked to state principles, rules, and procedures, and choose which apply to various scenarios. To assess student scientific inquiry skills, teachers give problems or situations that require students to speculate, inquire, and formulate hypotheses.

Teachers should also give hands-on activities to conduct research and draw conclusions. To assess student thinking skills, teachers can ask students to give summaries of different kinds of thinking strategies. Teachers can provide situations in which students must select the best thinking strategies to apply. Teachers assign students to observe examples of open-mindedness versus closed-mindedness, accurate versus inaccurate, and responsible versus irresponsible applications of thinking methods.

Teachers can design scenarios requiring student persistence for analyzing and discovering answers, as well as application of thinking strategies in real-life circumstances. To assess verbal knowledge, teachers require information recall, restatement, and comprehension.

Teaching Strategies to Address Student and Family Diversity
Teachers must recognize that each student is unique. When a teacher respects individual student differences, he or she communicates this attitude to the class. Cultural differences influence human behavior, and thus play a part in classrooms. Acknowledgement of cultural differences helps to prevent student isolation. To educate students from diverse backgrounds, teachers need to understand a student's culture and individual characteristics—as well as any existing disabilities. Teacher and school involvement with students' families promotes student success during and after school. This requires educators to avoid ethnocentric approaches. Diverse families may need instruction in the school culture of collaboration and communication. Schools also must initially meet family needs physically, socially, and economically to enable involvement, requiring school knowledge of supportive community programs. Communications must be translated for families speaking different languages. Educators need willingness to interact outside of school hours and grounds. They can also recruit parent liaisons with similar cultural backgrounds. Teachers should open parent communications with positive feedback about children.
Inclusive educational programs require meaningful, effective collaboration of educators, students, and families. Teachers must not only meet student and family needs, but they must also communicate their own needs effectively and be willing to find solutions through team-based approaches.
Collaboration allows outcomes that individuals cannot achieve alone. Despite the challenges of cooperation among staff members, the more teachers interact with each other, the more educational change can be achieved successfully.
Understanding of cultural communication differences, respectful disagreement, respect for confidentiality, willingness to compromise, responsible communication of opinions and emotions (such as using 'I' statements), tolerance for others' various perspectives, and careful listening to others are communication skills needed for effective communication and collaboration. Some educators advocate multicultural awareness days involving all school personnel, families, and community members when each school year starts. Culturally responsive standards-based instruction (CRSBI) incorporates caring, communication, and curriculum. Educators must also foster positive student-teacher relationships, and assure positive role models for every student.

Creating Safe Educational Environments
Teachers need to establish and sustain classroom environments for students in which they feel nurtured and know that the teacher is open to hearing their feelings, thoughts, and ideas. Teachers are responsible for developing respect for individual differences and openness to discussions in their classrooms. They may need to explain the difference between fairness and equality. For example, students who need eyeglasses cannot be deprived of them, but neither should all students be made to wear them.
Teachers can use such examples to illustrate to students that fairness does not mean everybody gets the same treatment: while every student deserves help, that help will differ for different students. Teachers must create student-teacher relationships of mutual trust, and ensure that all students know the teachers care about them, both academically and personally. Teachers' beliefs, attitudes, and performance expectations, and how they communicate these, establish this knowledge. Teachers must know student and family languages, communication styles, and home literacy practices and build on these in their classrooms.