Assessment Strategies
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"You are doing great as far as pace... you have really chunked your lessons and this is what ESE teachers wish gen ed teachers would do."
- Ms. Cynthia Carbone Former coworker, ESE (special education) teacher |
I use data to drive my instruction by understanding where students are and what they need. The use of many formative assessments helps me chunk my lessons so they're more 'digestible' for students and check my students' understanding as we go (then making modifications as needed).
They also help engage students! You can see a few examples of some formative assessments I use below. Talking to the Text/Annotations
This assessment strategy gets students to interact with the text, and then allows the teacher to understand how well the students are relating to or comprehending the text. The students refer to something from the reading, and then they must either make a connection, ask a question, predict something, etc.
Dry Erase Boards
These are useful for any formative assessment. This photo is a vocabulary activity - it allowed me to see if the student chose the correct word. I've also used them during one of my lessons where I reviewed the novel Fahrenheit 451 the day before the test, I had the students play the "Two Truths and a Lie" game. On a Power Point, the students were given three statements - two were true and one was a lie. On their whiteboards, they had to write the number of the statement that was incorrect. They then had to flip the boards over so that I could evaluate how much of the class knew the correct answer. This then allowed me to decide how much time I needed to spend going over the correct answers for that topic before I moved on.
Questioning Strategies/Discussions
Discussing class topics and material gives students the opportunity to learn from one another (which is invaluable). I incorporate strategies like circle time, world cafe, and traditional whole-group discussion. These formative assessments help students to think deeper about the material, comprehend it better, and helps me to understand the students' comprehension levels and interest.
World Cafe in my classroom consists of multiple rounds of conversation for small groups seated around a table. I give students a question to discuss and then set a timer. I have groups write their discussed responses down on a sheet of chart paper. When the time is up, the group moves to a different table and read the previous group's responses. This repeats for as many questions as there are and then the class has a whole group discussion. This is a great way to get students to share perspectives and think more deeply on a topic. To see a series of World Cafe questions that students responded to for Lord of the Flies, please click on the thumbnail below. This question, "What causes some people to prevail while others fail when facing challenges?" was the essential question for one of the tenth grade's cross-curricular units on health conditions and I had students relate this to the literary text we were reading in English.
CER Paragraphs
A Claim Evidence Reason is a traditional paragraph you might find in an essay. It makes a claim, provides evidence that backs that claim, and provides the reason that then supports the claim. This organization helps students understand the relationships between ideas in their writing. This is something we work on throughout the year and it helps students as they prepare larger writing assignments like essays. It also helps me see where their understanding of writing is at.
ELL Comic
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