Assessment
The main purpose of assessment is to improve students' learning and teachers' instruction as they both respond to the information it provides. It is an ongoing process that arises out of the ongoing interaction of teaching and learning. With that in mind there were two main considerations involving the type of assessments that would be used in this course: the nature of the course (asynchronous online) and the course timeframe. Since the course is online and the students will not all be meeting at the same time, many of the formative assessments such as class discussions were created with clearly identified instructions and deadlines so that they would be most effective. The timeframe of the course varies depending on the level of student participation but for the majority of the students it will take about 6 hours to complete. Below is an overview of the two types of assessment used in this course.
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
Most of the assessment that takes place in this course is formative. It is the most effective type of assessment for improving student understanding and performance. The purpose is to provide students with feedback on how they are going and the aim is to help students improve their performance and make their next piece of assessed work better.It occurs as learners are in the process of making meaning of new content and of integrating it into what they already know. Feedback to the learner is immediate (or nearly so), to enable the learner to change his/her behavior and understandings right away.
Examples of Formative Assessment in this Course: Interactive class discussions; Wallwisher, various worksheets, quizzes
An example of a quiz with answer explanations is below. This quiz addresses the following enabling objectives: Describe the purpose for the shift to the Common Core; Examine the range and content of student reading, writing, speaking & listening and language use; Compare the Vertical Progressions of the Standards handout (PA Department of Education) and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge to infer the “spiraling” of skills through the grades.
Examples of Formative Assessment in this Course: Interactive class discussions; Wallwisher, various worksheets, quizzes
An example of a quiz with answer explanations is below. This quiz addresses the following enabling objectives: Describe the purpose for the shift to the Common Core; Examine the range and content of student reading, writing, speaking & listening and language use; Compare the Vertical Progressions of the Standards handout (PA Department of Education) and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge to infer the “spiraling” of skills through the grades.
SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT
There are only two summative assessments for this course: a teacher created unit of study that is based on the Common Core standards and a course evaluation. Summative Assessment takes place at the end of a large chunk of learning, with the results being primarily for the teacher's or district’s use. Results may take time to be returned to the student/parent, feedback to the student is usually very limited, and the student usually has no opportunity to be reassessed. The information obtained can be used by the teacher or district to identify strengths and weaknesses of this course with the purpose of improving this professional development session next summer.
Examples of Summative Assessment in this Course: teacher created unit of study, course evaluation
An example of a course evaluation (created on Survey Monkey) is below:
Examples of Summative Assessment in this Course: teacher created unit of study, course evaluation
An example of a course evaluation (created on Survey Monkey) is below: