Philosophy of Assessment Written by Laura Noble Updated February 27th, 2013

Assessing students is the one of the most important jobs as an educator. Although assessment may be traditionally seen as giving a single grade to each student, new and innovative ways to assess have a huge impact the validity of student learning. As we grow to learn each student, we recognize their own learning styles and need to accommodate for each child in our classrooms. Through the use of diagnostic, formative and summative assessments, my goal as an educator is for each student in my care to have an excellent learning experience that helps their self-efficacy and self-esteem grow each and every day. Through carefully detailed lesson plans and assessments, student learning will be constantly blossoming in my classrooms through the use of multiple assessment types and the personal growth portfolios. At the beginning of a new semester, students will be introduced to the idea of graphing their own goals with a focus on learning goals rather than performance goals. While it is understandable that students may be expecting a certain grade in a class, it is important to make it clear to all individuals that the process of learning is much more important than the final product (grade). Through the graphing of goals, students will be able to visually track their own progress and be shown where they are able to improve in the course while becoming self-motivated to hit their targets. Before starting to teach a new class, a diagnostic/pre-learning assessment needs to be done on each child. This assessment will allow for me as an educator to see where my students are in their learning process and what previous knowledge they will be bringing to my classroom. By completing this task, I will be able to modify my lesson plans if need be, no matter if students are at a higher or lower learning level than I had originally planned for. From this assessment, I will be able to set out my own learning goals for the class which will help guide and track each individuals learning process. The key to student learning is frequent formative assessment. Formative assessment helps not only the students, but you as a teacher. By providing multiple chances for students to give me feedback on their own progress in my class, I will be able to see where I need to make improvements in my lesson plans and also target specific students who may need extra help in certain areas. Formative assessment can also be done in several different ways including (but not limited to) oral and written assessments. Oral formative assessments can be in the form of class discussions or debates while written choices may be exit or entrance slips. I wish for my students to be completely comfortable with themselves in my classroom;

however, before students are able to fully explore their own creativity, they will need to be completely comfortable with me as the educator and with their peers. While peer feedback and summative assessments are often thought of as anxiety causing activities, I hope to make my students feel comfortable with each assessment that is given. To allow for creativity, I will implement creative project work wherever I see fit. It is important for students to interact with each other in the class, and I will model this process by joining or creating a Professional Learning Community amongst the other teachers in my subject area. Project and performance based learning are both excellent ways for student involvement and to increase their learning with the subject material. These assessments allow for students to reach the higher levels of thinking such as Synthesis and Analysis in Blooms Cognitive Taxonomy. Through performances such as readers theatre, slam poetry and song writing and project such as foldables, posters and dioramas, students retain much of the information that may be lost when summative assessment is only done through paper and pencil testing. At times, paper and pencil tests are a necessity in the classroom. When that time arises, it is important that each test question, no matter if it is of the selected or constructed type, needs to be reviewed by a peer. Sound tests should allow for students to easily understand the directions of the test that they are taking, what its purpose is and why it is important to their learning goals. Creativity in my classroom will be rewarding to not only for my students, but for myself as an educator. Seeing what students are able to create allows me to see their personalities shine and I strongly believe that more attention needs to be paid to the individual themselves and their learning process, not their final grade. Through project based learning, I hope to instill a sense of pride for each one of my students and show them that learning can be fun and innovative while still being educational.

References Airasian, P. W., Enemann, J. E., & Gallagher, T. L. (2007). Preparing Selected and Constructed Response Tests. Classroom Assessment: Concepts and Applications Canadian Ed., McGraw Hill: Toronto, 87-116. DuFour, R. (2007). Once upon a time: A tale of excellence in assessment. In Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching & Learning. Doug Reeves (Ed.), 253267. Solution Tree: Bloomington IN. Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2007). Using projects and peformances to check for understanding. In Checking for Understanding: Formative Assessment Techiques forYour Classroom. ASCD: Alexandria, VA, 72-97.