"Assessment is a process of collecting information about individuals or groups for the purpose of making decisions. In education, assessment ordinarily refers to testing, interviewing, and observing students. Assessment serves various purposes, including screening (quick measures to determine who may need further assessment), diagnosis (measures to identify specific problems), progress monitoring (frequent measures to help guide instruction), and outcomes measures (assessments to determine the effectiveness of educational programming) (Obi and Sapp 2014, p. 107).
Diagnostic Assessment: focuses on the identification of effective instructional strategies for children differing on any number of variables related to academic learning.
Formative Assessment: Assessment refering to the ongoing assessment carried out by teachers, both formally and informally, during a unit of work. "The results of formative assessments have a direct impact on the teaching materials and strategies employed immediately following the assessment (Obi and Sapp 2014, p. 111).."
Summative Assessments: Assessment that occur at defined periods of the academic year, such as pre-determined SAT tests, PRAXIS I or at the end of a unit of work. "Summative tests help teachers in making end-of-key-stage ‘best fit’ assessments and are also of use in determining the overall subject level for pupil record cards (Obi and Sapp 2014, p. 111)."
Dynamic Assessment: an interactive form of assessment. "For example, if a child is given a pre-test or ‘before’ measure and an intervention or treatment, and then given a post-test or ‘after’ treatment measure, this allows an assessor to determine if the child is responding to an intervention (Obi and Sapp 2014, p. 111)."
Lesson 5 Assignmet - My Daughter's Dance Class Assessments: For this assignment I was able to observe my daughter’s dance class like I do every weekend; while making breakfast for my nearly two year old son watching a zoom presentation. This week was different though, I got the opportunity to view her class through the lens of an educational psychologist. The forms of assessment Miss Sharon used to identify the children’s basic knowledge of tap and ballet and teach them based on their observable skill level were effective an efficient. Through mostly formative and summative assessments, the progress the children have shown over the last year has shown that she may not know the terminology used by educational psychologists, but she has a handle of the methods and practices explained in this week’s readings. |
