Colorado Quality Standard 3: Regular Assessment
After each unit my students take a test to assess their learning. Each unit contains new vocabulary, a reading strategy, writing style, and two readings. After giving the assessments, I go back and re-teach skills that students missed both as a group and individually. Students write corrections for each missed answer and explain which answer is correct and why. I incorporate the commonly missed concepts into my lesson plans for 2-3 days after the assessment.
Using assessments to re- visit skills that have not been mastered is essential to teaching a language, or any skill. Through analyzing student learning and drawing on assessment results, I am able to re-visit tough subjects, and continually work on that specific area (Element B). Encountering what students are struggling with also enables me to refine how I am teaching similar subjects, as well as the amount of time we spend studying a given subject. Using curriculum-aligned assessments, writing samples, and reading assessments fully informs my instruction and provides direction for my next steps (Element H).
I have found that follow-up is necessary when students are not mastering a skill. The motions of assessment are useless unless we go back and work on what we have missed. Students work harder when they are expecting an assessment. In addition to this, students learn from their errors and are able to keep an eye out for these errors in the future. Once we “raise the flag” on a common error, students will be more likely to catch it next time. Assessments are very beneficial to my classroom planning, and have helped me understand every student’s unique learning process a bit more clearly.
Using assessments to re- visit skills that have not been mastered is essential to teaching a language, or any skill. Through analyzing student learning and drawing on assessment results, I am able to re-visit tough subjects, and continually work on that specific area (Element B). Encountering what students are struggling with also enables me to refine how I am teaching similar subjects, as well as the amount of time we spend studying a given subject. Using curriculum-aligned assessments, writing samples, and reading assessments fully informs my instruction and provides direction for my next steps (Element H).
I have found that follow-up is necessary when students are not mastering a skill. The motions of assessment are useless unless we go back and work on what we have missed. Students work harder when they are expecting an assessment. In addition to this, students learn from their errors and are able to keep an eye out for these errors in the future. Once we “raise the flag” on a common error, students will be more likely to catch it next time. Assessments are very beneficial to my classroom planning, and have helped me understand every student’s unique learning process a bit more clearly.
Round Robin Sentence Creation Activity
Corrections |
After the above assessment, students clearly did not have a complete grasp of the present progressive verb form. This class is made up of five students. Each student started with writing in the correct form of "be," then passed the practice sheet on to the next student to fill in the verb, and to the last student to complete the sentence. This activity solidified students' knowledge of the present progressive. Each student did much better on the follow-up assessment below.
Students also complete corrections that indicate the correct answer and why the other options are incorrect. |