Dottie Akers-Pecht

EDIS 5401
Portfolio Preface: Statement on Assessment
I believe that assessment is a tool of communication between teachers and students.
Assessment can inform teachers as to how they should plan future instruction in order to meet
students at their readiness levels, revisit an area of difficulty, or confront and correct a
misconception that students have about a subject. Additionally, assessment should provide
students with sufficient feedback as to how they can progress within a skill or knowledge area in
order to meet course objectives. This feedback should be concrete, specific, and provided to
students in a timely fashion so that they have opportunities in the future to apply the teachers
input on future assessments. That being said, assessments do not always necessitate a grade;
informal diagnostic and formative assessments can successfully inform the teacher as to
students progress while simultaneously giving students the opportunity to practice their skills
and knowledge without the pressure of receiving a grade.
Good or well-planned assessments should also be carefully aligned with objectives in
order to ensure their validity and reliability. When graded, the points assigned to multiple parts of
a summative assessment should be reasonable and defensible by the teacher. In order to relate
content to students interests and learning profiles, teachers can provide students with the
autonomy to choose from multiple performance-based assessments and rich tasks. It is important
that assessments have real-world application and are authentic, gradually integrating higher level
thinking skills such as problem-based learning and tasks that necessitate students to think like
professionals in a field of study. Assessments should help students to become better creative and
critical thinkers within the real world, as well as provide them with opportunities for selfreflection and future growth.

During this short text unit, students have multiple opportunities throughout to inform me
of their knowledge of key concepts and skills before they are assigned numeric grades. Through
activities such as journal entries, class discussions, graphic organizers, and exit slips, students
reveal their previous knowledge and gained understandings as well as any misconceptions they
may have formed. For the final summative assessment, students have the opportunity to share
their initial ideas and drafts with peers via writing workshop sessions. Additionally, they will be
able to conference with the teacher in order to be made aware of any necessary changes and
revisions prior to their submission of the final product. As for the final personal narrative,
students will submit this creative writing piece to the teacher to be published to a class wiki so
that they can share their products with an authentic audience. Throughout the unit, students will
periodically reflect upon their progress in journal entries and exit slips so that they can
internalize the amount of growth they have achieved across these four weeks, as well as provide
the teacher with valuable information about the effectiveness of this units instructional
approaches.