Response #2 Assessing Students and Texts

Formal vs Informal

 

Instructional assessment is a process of gathering and using multiple sources of relevant information about students for instructional purposes. Assessment in content area classrooms means that students and teachers are actively engaged in a process of evaluation and self-evaluation. Instead of measuring learning exclusively by a score on a standardized test or proficiency exam, the learning process includes assessment of authentic tasks. (Vacca, 2011, pg. 84)

After reading the chapter, I reflected upon the above sentences. My take is that there is ongoing assessment, which, is in the form of the daily observation conducted by teachers/educators of students language and thinking as they learn. The issue with this is that observation without feedback is of little value. We as teachers/educators have to encourage, support, correct and suggest new ways to illustrate that learning. Students should then use summative assessment to show their combined learning of the concepts, big ideas, important facts, skills and language. Summative assessments do foster a lot of learning.

We as teachers/educators need to think of assessments as both avenues and destinations for learning. Assessment can and do provide effective ways to not only teach language but to test it. We as teachers/educators need to provide the students with tools that will best serve their needs. We as teachers/educators need to create assessments that will allow students to step into real communication practices. We need to scaffold and model the language and thinking that we desire to see in our students’ assessment as visible and explicit as we can.