New Ways to Assess

NOTE:  This post is the third in a miniseries on Assessment and Evaluation in the classroom, aimed at providing support both to my teacher colleagues and to parents of school children. 

Whether you’re a parent or a teacher reading this blog, chances are high you spent over a decade in a traditional public education setting and you’re likely very familiar with your teachers using quizzes, tests, and pencil and paper assignments to assess your learning.  But good teaching practice today extends to using a much wider range of ways to assess student learning.  Today I’ll be offering some examples as a way to help parents recognize assessment activities that might be happening in their child’s classroom and as a way to offer inspiration to teaching colleagues looking for fresh ideas.

 

·         Observing students and making notes on a chart or post-it notes

·         Conferencing with students

·         Having students do hands-on tasks

·         Using a checklist

·         Asking students to self-assess their learning

·         Asking a student to quiz the teacher by creating a question for the teacher, and then verifying if the teacher has the correct answer

·         Looking through a portfolio of work

·         Asking students to give a presentation

·         Students teach a skill or concept to their peers

·         Asking students to show their answer in more than one way

·         Asking students to write a journal or blog about their learning