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    Assessment in the Classroom
    Assessment in the Classroom
    Assessment in the Classroom
    Ebook60 pages39 minutes

    Assessment in the Classroom

    By Carolyn Callahan, Frances Karnes and Kristen Stephens

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    About this ebook

    The goal of all classrooms is to maximize the learning of all students; therefore, correctly assessing what students have learned is an integral part of good instruction. By keeping the goal of good, strong assessment in mind, a teacher can clearly see his or her desired outcomes for a lesson, activity, or unit. It is critical to take into account a student's level of knowledge, understanding, beliefs, skills, dispositions, and learning styles when planning for good classroom instruction and assessment. Carolyn Callahan, a leader in the field of gifted education, guides teachers toward answering these questions about their students and planning for quality classroom assessment. In addition, the book provides an overview of the most common and successful assessment methods, including formal and informal assessments, student self-assessments, and preassessment strategies for planning instruction.

    This is one of the books in Prufrock Press' popular Practical Strategies Series in Gifted Education. This series offers a unique collection of tightly focused books that provide a concise, practical introduction to important topics concerning the education of gifted children. The guides offer a perfect beginner's introduction to key information about gifted and talented education.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSourcebooks
    Release dateApr 1, 2006
    ISBN9781593637736
    Assessment in the Classroom
    Author

    Carolyn Callahan

    Carolyn M. Callahan, Ph.D., is Commonwealth Professor of Education at the University of Virginia and is an expert in gifted education.

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      Book preview

      Assessment in the Classroom - Carolyn Callahan

      Author

      Series Preface

      The Practical Strategies Series in Gifted Education offers teachers, counselors, administrators, parents, and other interested parties up-to-date instructional techniques and information on a variety of issues pertinent to the field of gifted education. Each guide addresses a focused topic and is written by scholars with authority on the issue. Several guides have been published. Among the titles are:

      Acceleration Strategies for Teaching Gifted Learners

      Curriculum Compacting: An Easy Start to Differentiating for High-Potential Students

      Enrichment Opportunities for Gifted Learners

      Independent Study for Gifted Learners

      Motivating Gifted Students

      Questioning Strategies for Teaching the Gifted

      Social & Emotional Teaching Strategies

      Using Media & Technology With Gifted Learners

      For a current listing of available guides within the series, please contact Prufrock Press at (800) 998-2208 or visit http://www.prufrock.com

      Introduction

      The major goal of instruction is to maximize the learning of all students in the classroom. With that goal in mind, a teacher can clearly see his or her desired outcomes for the activity, lesson, or unit that is planned. However, appropriate selection of these end goals and success in achieving an environment in which all learners are fully engaged in the learning process depends on a clear awareness of the current academic status of all students in the classroom. It is, therefore, critical to take into account the current level of knowledge, understandings of concepts, beliefs, skills, and dispositions (e.g., willingness to engage in critical thinking) of students in the classroom, as well as their wide range of interests and preferred learning styles. In heterogeneous classrooms, differences in student knowledge, skills, and understandings are often striking. The range of differences within a group of gifted students at any grade level is likely to be vast, as well. Like any group of students, gifted students differ in the ways they prefer to process information, in the ways they approach learning, in what motivates them, and in the values they bring to the learning process.

      The National Research Council (NRC; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999) documents that learning is enhanced when teachers pay attention to the knowledge and beliefs that learners bring to a learning task, use this knowledge as a starting point for new instruction, and monitor students’ changing conceptions as instruction proceeds (p. 11). The NRC also affirms the importance of motivation in influencing the amount of time a student will commit to learning, and of setting an appropriate level of challenge in a task for such motivation to be sustained. When a task is too difficult students are frustrated and lose motivation, and when a task or learning activity is too easy students are bored and unmotivated.

      The current understanding of the ways in which learning occurs suggests that new knowledge must be built on existing knowledge and that existing knowledge greatly influences how students process new knowledge (Cobb, 1994; Piaget, 1978; Vygotsky, 1978). As a consequence, the NRC concluded that effectively designed learning environments must be assessment centered (Bransford et al., 1999, p. 127); that for the greatest amount of student learning success, classroom instruction must include opportunities for feedback and revision, as well as summative, conclusive assessment; and that the content of summative assessment must reflect a close match between what is assessed and the instructional learning goals. Therefore, to provide the most effective classrooms for gifted students, we

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