Standard Seven | Assessment
The competent teacher understands and uses appropriate formative and summative assessments for determining student needs, monitoring student progress, measuring student growth, and evaluating student outcomes. The teacher makes decisions driven by data about curricular and instructional effectiveness and adjusts practices to meet the needs of each student.
Artifacts
Artifact 1
Conceptual Humanities Unit
Knowledge Indicator 7B: The competent teacher understands that assessment is a means of evaluating how students learn and what they know and are able to do in order to meet the Illinois Learning Standards;
During my enrollment in CI 401: Introduction to Teaching in a Diverse Society at the University of Illinois, I collaborated with a team of individuals from my cohort in order to create an engaging unit on the concept of freedom in early American history. This unit includes a daily plan for each day within the four-week unit, lessons plans employed throughout this unit, assessments that gauge students learning, and various resources utilized within the unit.
Knowledge Indicator 7B: The competent teacher understands that assessment is a means of evaluating how students learn and what they know and are able to do in order to meet the Illinois Learning Standards;
During my enrollment in CI 401: Introduction to Teaching in a Diverse Society at the University of Illinois, I collaborated with a team of individuals from my cohort in order to create an engaging unit on the concept of freedom in early American history. This unit includes a daily plan for each day within the four-week unit, lessons plans employed throughout this unit, assessments that gauge students learning, and various resources utilized within the unit.
Reflection on Conceptual Humanities Unit
This conceptual humanities unit on freedom in early American history demonstrates my ability to meet Standard 7 of the Illinois Professional Teaching Standards: Assessment. One of the reasons that this unit is an appropriate demonstration of my use of proper assessment is its use of multiple levels and multiple types of assessment. The unit contains both formative and summative assessments, as well as both formal and informal assessments. For example, the freedom bulletin board is meant to be used as a formative assessment, and helps the teacher gauge what students are learning, how they are engaging with the material, and what changes need to be made to instructional strategies. Other assessments, such as the Constitutional Convention debate, are more formal and reflect what overall knowledge students have of the content matter. This illustrates my understanding of using assessment to gauge student learning and their ability to meet Illinois Learning Standards.
The freedom unit is a good representation of my ability to use assessment because assessment is so rooted within the unit as a whole. I chose to use this artifact because it incorporates daily formative assessments throughout the unit, as well as more formal weekly formative assessments. In addition, projects and assignments are used as further means of assessment. As a whole, completing this unit has helped me grow and to understand the importance of not only ensuring students meet classroom goals and state standards, but continuously gauging where the students are at and how they are responding to instruction in order for those goals to be met.
The freedom unit is a good representation of my ability to use assessment because assessment is so rooted within the unit as a whole. I chose to use this artifact because it incorporates daily formative assessments throughout the unit, as well as more formal weekly formative assessments. In addition, projects and assignments are used as further means of assessment. As a whole, completing this unit has helped me grow and to understand the importance of not only ensuring students meet classroom goals and state standards, but continuously gauging where the students are at and how they are responding to instruction in order for those goals to be met.
Artifact 2
Assessment Task
Knowledge Indicator 7E: The competent teacher understand how to select, construct, and use assessment strategies and instruments for diagnosis and evaluation of learning and instruction;
During the course of EPSY 485: Assessing Student Performance, I completed an extended project that focused on creating a variety of appropriate assessment items that test students' knowledge of what has been learned in class about the Great Depression. The context of this assessment, as well as an answer key, is provided within the document.
Knowledge Indicator 7E: The competent teacher understand how to select, construct, and use assessment strategies and instruments for diagnosis and evaluation of learning and instruction;
During the course of EPSY 485: Assessing Student Performance, I completed an extended project that focused on creating a variety of appropriate assessment items that test students' knowledge of what has been learned in class about the Great Depression. The context of this assessment, as well as an answer key, is provided within the document.
Reflection on Assessment Task
This assessment task designed for a unit on the Great Depression is a demonstration of my ability to meet Standard 7 of the Illinois Professional Teaching Standards: Assessment. It is an appropriate reflection of my ability to meet this standard because It is a comprehensive assessment task that is complete with the context of the assessment, a rationale linked with learning objectives, and a reflection on the creation of the assessment. The variety of items I included in this assessment (i.e multiple choice, short answer) showcases my ability to use a variety of assessment items to gauge student learning. The first set of items tests student understanding and knowledge of the unit, while the second set of items asks them to apply the information they learned and use it to synthesize various responses. This varied and comprehensive way of testing student learning is why I chose to display this artifact.
Not only does this assessment allow for multiple forms of expression for students, but it is also closely linked to learning objectives for the unit, showing the effective way I have learned to use assessment appropriately. Students are given the option to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways, making the assessment fair for all students with all kinds of learning styles. The assessment has strong validity in addition to its fairness due to its close connection with learning standards directly addressed in the content of the unit. Overall, this assessment task is a testament to my growth as a teacher and my expanding professional knowledge on how to design and implement effective formative and summative assessments for my students, as well as my ability to create and implement assessment strategies and tools to evaluate student learning.
Not only does this assessment allow for multiple forms of expression for students, but it is also closely linked to learning objectives for the unit, showing the effective way I have learned to use assessment appropriately. Students are given the option to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways, making the assessment fair for all students with all kinds of learning styles. The assessment has strong validity in addition to its fairness due to its close connection with learning standards directly addressed in the content of the unit. Overall, this assessment task is a testament to my growth as a teacher and my expanding professional knowledge on how to design and implement effective formative and summative assessments for my students, as well as my ability to create and implement assessment strategies and tools to evaluate student learning.
© 2016 Yulia Cook | Last Updated: May 2016