BRENDAN C. A. MENG
Assessment
InTASC Standard #6 -- The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learner’s decision making.
Introduction
Assessment is the gatekeeper of instructional decision making within my teaching practice. Depending on student achievement, assessments allow me to either proceed within a unit or instruct me to create reteaching or extension activities to remediate misconceptions. Utilizing various diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments enables me to track my students' academic growth on a daily, unit, and year-long basis. Most importantly, these constant cycles of assessing and re-assessing provide me with data specific enough to identify key strengths and weaknesses in the content-understanding of each student. By strategically planning assessment questions based on state Standards of Learning (SOL), the results depict a much more detailed analysis of my students' progress than simply identifying whether they are doing well or in need of assistance. The results of assessments reveal an incredible amount of technical information about my students' progress within a certain unit or sub-unit of curriculum. Data from assessments which can be broken down on a question-to-standard basis allows me to identify exactly what essential knowledge or skills within the lesson or unit curriculum a student may be struggling with. Upon reviewing and identifying such influential specifics, the deliberate changes I make within my curriculum in reaction to this data is the key to my students reaching their full potential and achieving exceptional academic growth.
I have chosen to focus on artifacts of the assessment portion of my pedagogy which will showcase the best practices from my classroom. Please click on one of the section links from the assessment navigation menu below to learn more about how I employ and utilize each to its full potential to assist my students on the path to significant academic achievement.
Conclusion
Analysis of assessment results, whether formative or summative, should be the gatekeeper of instructional decision making for all teachers. Additionally, as a best teaching practice, teachers should choose various assessment platforms which provide in-depth analyses of student achievement in as much detail as possible. Only once learning gaps and student needs surrounding academic achievement have been identified through careful analysis of assessment data, can teachers then make decisions regarding instruction that will yield the highest outcomes in academic achievement for their students.
Through utilization of various types of multipurpose assessments, I am able to identify learning gaps in my students content knowledge and skills and thereafter administer appropriate objective-based instruction and assessments to address such learning gaps. Once identified, reteaching and differentiated extension activities are the tools I utilize to remediate learning gaps and provide for learners' needs, putting them on the path to success. Furthermore, By providing identification of quality work and effective specific feedback on formative and summative assessments, I assist my learners in guiding their thinking and progress towards high academic achievement. Through selection, creation, and administration of technology-based assessments which mimic the end of course state-mandated SOL, I truly do prepare my learners, including those with disabilities and testing accommodations, for success in my classroom.