Running head: PHILOSOPHY OF ASSESSING 1

Philosophy of Assessing

By: Allison C. Reynolds

Salt Lake Community College

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Philosophy of Assessing

There are many ways to assess your students. It is super important to assess your children

as much as possible. You dont want to overwhelm your whole class by having them so often

that it doesnt allow teaching time though. Another thing that is important to have an idea on is

how you are going to be grading the assessments too. There are times that you will want to take

an assessment but you dont necessarily want to take it to add it to their grade but you want to

take it to just use as a check point on what you are teaching.

One thing that I have noticed is the assessment category can be very broad. You can have

oral assessments, or even just a quick quiz. I feel like you should have some type of an

assessment once a week. It wouldnt have to be a big thing that you have to take an hour on. I

want to just make it an oral thing that we can do as a class to see if they understand what they are

supposed to. A lot of times if you just ask the questions and let the students call out the answers

then you arent really figuring out which students know, and which dont. The most effective

way that I have found is to ask the question and call on a student randomly. That way if they get

it wrong then you will know and the best thing you can do is review that part of the chapter. I do

want to make sure I have big tests, but I think I wouldnt need to take one except for the end of

the chapters.

It is important to know what kind of tests you want so that you can understand what

checkpoints you want to have. Also, what you are going to be assessing them on need to be

something that you are teaching your students. If you assess them on something that they arent

even learning, then your job becomes pointless. Kauchak and Eggen (2017) said, Assessment is

the process we use to gather information and make decisions about students learning progress,

and, unfortunately, we tend to think of it as a process that comes after a lesson has been taught.
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Quizzes and tests are the most common forms of assessment, and, indeed, we give them after we

teach lessons. However, to assess most effectively, we should be thinking about assessment

during our initial planning. The thing I want to do is before I start teaching the chapter then I

want to look at the assessment I am going to be giving them. By looking at the test you can see

what you need to focus on and emphasize more.

Another part of taking the assessments is how are you planning on grading them. You

have to know how you are going to grade them before you take the test. A lot of times you will

give a quiz then if you start grading them you will realize that you taught them a certain way that

it is really your fault that you did it wrong. So, either you will have to go back and regrade, or

you have to retake the assessment. One thing that I want to include in my grading is I want to

look at the tests after they have all been graded and see what each student missed. If I am

noticing that a lot of them are missing the same concept then I will do some reteaching on that

concept. If they all failed the test that is on me, not them. The tests will help me see that I am

being an effective teacher.

Another important assessment that is going to make a big different in your teaching

career is a summative and formative assessment. Another way of wording the summative and

formative assessment is an evaluation. A summative evaluation is more focused on the outcome.

Its what you want in the end. I want to use this to help so I have a better understanding in what I

want my students to learn from the lesson, so pretty much what I want them to know after I teach

them a concept. For example, lets say Im teaching kids the different parts of speech. I would

need to think about what I would want them to do with that information and how it is going to

affect them. So, I would think about that I would want them to write a complete sentence by the

end that makes sense. A formative assessment is to show what you are wanting to teach the kids.
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So, if you use my other example the formative would be the students learning the parts of

speech. It isnt the outcome it is what they are learning and what I am teaching them. It will also

help me with gathering information on what I am trying to teach my class.

Some other types of assessments which to me are the most important and effective are

formal and informal assessments. An informal assessment is not like a sit down and be quiet for

an hour it is just kind of like a check point to make sure that the kids are understanding what you

are teaching them. The kinds that I want to use in my class are more of oral stuff. I feel like a

classroom should have a good community and I want all of my kids to never be scared of being

wrong and having their own opinion. If I take more informal assessment I feel like it will make

my classroom more of a community. Formal assessments are more of a sitting down and doing

their own thinking which I also think is very important. I wouldnt want to take these as often

because I wouldnt want to drive my students brains up the walls. I do want to make sure that I

do take them at the end of the chapters or certain lessons just to make sure I was effective.

Deciding how to assess students are grade them are the ending of the most important part

of teaching. You cant be an effective teacher unless you have already figured out how you are

going to do it. Just because you make those plans it doesnt mean you cant make any changes.

As a teacher you are going to have to change things up and then a week later change them again.

Thats part of the improvement. It will help you teaching skills grow. You cant just expect that

after you get your degree that you will know everything. Because I know that teachers that have

PHDs and have been teaching for a long time still have to make adjustments and are still

learning.
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References

Introduction to Teaching, D. Kauchak & P. Eggen (2016)