Week 11 Reflection- Effective Assessment in Math

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What a big week we had this week...we are winding down the semester with nearly all of our assignments done (yahoo!) and have finally now had a taste of what it is like to lesson plan. I don't know about everybody else, but I struggled with the assessment part of the lesson plan. I thought to myself, what is the point of teaching a lesson if we can't assess our students on it? 

My biggest challenge that I face when I think of assessment is being fair to all students and making sure that I am evaluating them all with the same opportunities and the same mindset based on their individual needs. We have learned over the last 12 weeks that there are three different levels of assessment. Assessment for, as and of learning...what are these, you ask? Let's take a look. 

Assessment FOR Learning

Assessment for learning is a form of assessment that is used to determine student progress. Teachers are able to adjust learning to the needs of the students and provide feedback. 

Assessment OF Learning

Assessment of learning is the use of a task or an in class activity to measure, record and report on a student's level of achievement. Are they getting it? 

Assessment AS Learning

This is a form of assessment that allows students to use assessment to further their own learning. Students can use this to reflect on their learning and to set personal goals for themselves. 

Something I did not realize coming into teachers college that assessing a students level of achievement could be so complicated! I think we all assume it's going to be nice and easy every day, that everything is going to go smoothly, but as I've started putting together lesson plans I have started to realize that could not be farther from the truth...I've got something else coming for me in the real world eh? 

The most important thing that we need to remember is that we need to be fair to all students, give every single one of them an equal opportunity to succeed. As educators, it is our job to mold and shape these children into who they are going to become. We will spend an extremely large chunk of their lives with them between the months of September to June so we better make sure that we ALL try our best. 

Thanks for reading again this week, that's me signing off. Toodaloo! 

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