Professional Practice Standard 4: Assessment of and for Learning
The purpose of Virginia’s Assessment of and for Learning Professional Practice Standard is to concretely prove whether a student has mastered a specific skill or specific content knowledge. The goal of this standard is for teachers to use data gathered through assessments to inform their pedagogical strategies, teaching pace, and content focus. The objective of this standard is to ensure that teachers’ instruction and assessment are married together in a positive feedback loop so that neither stands alone or is misaligned.
Assessments, of any type, should always be for the expressed purpose of helping students learn, succeed, and grow inside the classroom and beyond. In practicality, teachers can create and implement student-centered assessments through the following three methods:
Involve Students:
Students who are given a choice are more likely to take greater responsibility for the achievement of their goal. Also, the goals that students set provide the educator with great insight into the students’ baseline levels of skill and self-efficacy. Monitoring progress towards their goals can increase students’ confidence in their own abilities. Moreover, having students self-assess and regulate their own progress is a skill that transfers into all disciplines, even those far beyond the classroom walls.
Below is an example of a checklist I give students to help them self-monitor their progress when writing and editing a persuasive essay, as well as an example of a chart for students to track tone, mood, and their predictions throughout a story. Finally, here is a list of novels and a list of projects students choose from to complete each quarter. Students must keep track of their reading and their projects.
Variety:
Using a variety of assessment strategies and instruments that are valid and appropriate for the content and for the student population at hand is essential because this method will allow for a reliable picture of a student’s knowledge base. An educator must decide which type of assessment will be most purposeful and effective in evaluating students’ knowledge and/or skills in dealing with a particular subject. The most efficient way of assessing students’ skills and content knowledge is by implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs), even when the student population is extremely diverse. A few of my favorite EBPs to use with my English classes appear below. Click on this link for an example RAFT assignment where a pair of students wrote a letter as Joey in “Marigolds” to his sibling years later for the purpose of emphasizing how one moment in the story greatly impacted his life. Click here, here, and here, for sample student responses to the pictures below in a Think-Pair-Share-Edit format. Lastly, see below for a picture of an example Word (Vocab) Map that students created.
Formative and Summative:
Educators should use assessment tools for both formative and summative purposes to inform, guide, and adjust students’ learning. In this way, students receive a differentiated and optimal learning experience that capitalizes on their individual strengths and encourages improvement for their weaknesses. Both types of assessments are necessary because formative assessments provide reference points to track and adjust students’ learning; in a sense, they are the stepping stones. Meanwhile, summative assessments measure overall learning, the final goal that could not have been reached without formative information. Implementing both types ensures that frequent and varied student data is tracked and utilized in making knowledgeable decisions for ideal student progress. Here is an example of a quiz and a review activity that helped me to check for understanding and to decide which activity or activities each student needed to master the content. I’ve also included the summative test as well as a picture of a summative poster project below.
Thesis:
Please click here to access my paper on this professional practice standard as part of my thesis for my MAT degree from Hollins University.