Skip to main content

Assessment - Which is Best?

When choosing what type of assessment you will use in a classroom, you must first ask yourself several questions: 

  1. Is this a formative or summative assessment?

  2. How much time do I (the teacher) have to compose and grade the assessment?

  3. How many standards or criteria should the assessment evaluate? 

These questions will determine what type of assessment best fits your situation. Depending upon the answers, you may choose one of three types, and each one has different advantages and disadvantages. 


Selected-Response Assessments: Students choose one of several potential answers.

Pros: Objective scoring, quick to grade, produce easy to analyze data. 

Cons: No higher-level thinking assessed, limited feedback, not authentic assessment (Seifert and Sutton, 2022).


Open-Ended Assessments: Students create an original response to a question.

Pros: Can be adapted to higher-level thinking, authentic assessment. 

Cons: Takes more time to grade and create assessments (Wasil et al., 2022). 


Performance Assessments: Students show their mastery through a performance task or project.

Pros: Most authentic assessment opportunity, adaptable to different learning styles.

Cons: Takes more time to grade and create assessments, some students may struggle to complete (Shaw, 2021).


In my view, any balanced assessment program should include each of these types of assessments throughout the school year. There is a time for each of these, and it is determined by the amount of time the teacher has to assess, the type of assessment needed, and the level of authenticity required to show mastery. For formatives, I lean toward the selected-response or open-ended assessments, while a performance assessments allows me to be more flexible with students’ tasks and their standards or criteria. One of the most memorable performance assessments I have received has been a full community from The Giver done completely on Minecraft. The student spent hours constructing this community with information from the novel, and even included details such as characters and memorable places from the story with markers. This ticked off several criteria and the student, instead of feeling like they could not succeed, instead excelled at the assessment.


References

Seifert, K. & Sutton, R. (2022, May 3). Selected response items. LibreTexts. https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Education_and_Professional_Development/Book%3A_Educational_Psychology_(Seifert_and_Sutton)/11%3A_Teacher-Made_Assessment_Strategies/11.08%3A_Selected_Response_Items


Shaw, B. P. (2021). Concert grades and performance assessment in ensemble music. Music Educators Journal, 108(2), 30–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/00274321211060358


Wasil, A. R., Venturo-Conerly, K. E., Gillespie, S., Osborn, T. L., & Weisz, J. R. (2022). In their own words: Using open-ended assessment to identify culturally relevant concerns among Kenyan adolescents. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, 46(2), 297–321. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-020-09706-1

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Assessment - Formative or Summative?

Many teachers learn about formative and summative assessments while they are engaging in education coursework; however, translating these types of assessments to the practical classroom can be a significant challenge. Using formative and summative assessments in tandem enables teachers to monitor progress and achievement while also implementing engaging and relevant authentic assessments for standards and criteria. The figure below outlines some differences between the two (Dixson and Worrell, 2016). Even if teachers understand the difference between formative and summative assessments, they can often struggle to identify how to use these in their classrooms. Below are some examples of formative and summative assessments used commonly by teachers (Yale, 2021).  Formative: Exit tickets, class discussions, weekly quizzes, Kahoots, homework assignments.  Summative: Projects, essays, standardized testing, unit tests, presentations.  Striking a balance between formative...
Post a Comment
Read more

Assessment - How Do Figures Help?

Assessment can be quite difficult for parents and students to understand. Visualizing data in figures is an essential tool for interpreting data and applying it to instruction design. The use of data has also been proven to increase collaboration among teachers, which in turn increases student achievement (Cavalluzzo et al., 2013). Data can also be used to visualize growth and areas of challenge according to specific standards or criteria.  At our school, we use data in a variety of ways in the assessment process. One of the most prominent is the schoolwide use of Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) data. This data is gathered twice a year in reading and math, and is used to differentiate instruction as well as group students for interventions if necessary. The data is always available for parents to view, and the school has conducted workshops on reading and understanding these figures.  Attached here is a sample from my daughter’s Grade 2 MAP test this past school year. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more