Standard IV - Assesses and Communicates Learning Results

To the right is a picture of the rubric I created this year to handle writing. I'll link the full document further down. Assessment is the way that a teacher finds out how much a student knows. This makes it one of the most important tools a teacher has if not the most important tool. Assessment is part of the most important thing you need to do as a teacher: You guessed it... "know your students."

This past year we've been taught many things about assessment. We've been taught Bloom's Taxonomy, wait-time, types of questions, how to design questions, etc. Throughout this standard you will find evidence that I've learned this material.

Poetry Assessment - A major project we had to do for the university was to create multiple assessments for a topic. Within this document you will find multiple choice questions, interpretive multiple choice questions, open response questions (2 types), and a performance event (in this case, a PowerPoint presentation). I am quite proud of this document.

Writing Rubric - This is the document that the picture above is of. After scrounging around on the Internet for a few days looking for good rubrics, I finally decided to make my own from the pieces I found. I wanted a rubric that could handle almost any writing situation with only slight modification. So I created this and have shared it with the teaching community. They loved it.

Reflection

Assessment is the foundation of a teacher's knowledge of their students. Remember I keep telling you to know your students? Well, what do you think assessment does? Assessment gives you an understanding of the student's knowledge.

At the beginning of the year I knew next to nothing about assessment except that I hated taking tests. However, now I have learned that assessment isn't just about taking tests. Assessment can be a teacher walking around the class and just looking over the shoulders of the students to see how they are doing on their classwork. It can also be a discussion that the class has with the teacher. There are multiple methods of assessment that can even be fun, such as quiz games, crafting projects, etc.

That being said, rubrics are essential. I can't stress this enough. Rubrics can be given to students to let them know what is expected of them out of the assignment. Rubrics help the teacher grade assignments because the details of what grade should be given are right there in black and white. When you create a rubric, you've saved yourself tremendous amounts of time. No looking at assignments thinking, "Argh. How do I grade this?" No constant questioning from the students, "What needs to be in this assignment?" All of it is right there in the rubric. Hand it out to the students and use it while grading. However, the rubric needs to be written to go with the assignment. It has to fit. Best way to do this is create a rubric specifically for each assignment you want to grade.

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."