Teacher-candidates use standards-based assessment that is systematically analyzed using multiple formative, summative, and self-assessment strategies to monitor and improve instruction.
It is important that teacher-candidates learn to properly use assessment to assess their students understanding of the learning target for the lesson. Teachers must be able to give assessments that allow multiple ways for students to show how much they know at the end of a unit or lesson.
In my internship placement classroom we were just finishing up our section on snails which is part of the Animals two by two. To wrap up our unit on snails which was all about the parts of land and water snails ad how they use those body parts we first had the students observe the snails and talk about what body parts are the same and are different. Than as a whole class we reviewed the parts of a snail. I used this as a formative assessment because I was able to gauge how well my students understood snail parts and their functions at that time. Finally as my summative assessments the students were asked to draw and label as best as they could a picture of a land snail and/or a water snail and write a fact sentence about them. As evidence of my competency in this area I have included the whole class drawing that we made and some samples of students drawing and writing about their snails.
These assessment examples are evidence of my growing competency in this area because I planned them out with the help of my mentor teacher and then I administered them with little difficulty. The whole class discussion gave students a chance to evaluate their own misconceptions about snails and they were able to write things that were true about snails, as well as label their picture once they had to do it on their own.
What I learned while planning and administering these assessments is that formative assessments are a great opportunity to make in the moment changes to your teaching. If the students are not getting it, it is always okay to go back and reteach in a different way to make sure that every student got what they were supposed to out of the lessons.
My students benefited from these assessments because first I gave them an opportunity to put all their thoughts into words and in one place at the front of the board. This made it possible for them to put their thoughts down on paper. Sometimes in kindergarten writing assignments don’t go as planned because some students are still struggling with their letter sounds. The way that I laid out the assessment allowed all of the students to write something about snails and the students that could write more did.
Next time I would like the students to do some self-reflection and self assessment about how well they think they did on their assessment as well as understanding the lesson.
Ms. Jena Machin 