Learning in America

Essay by HarneyElementary School, 1st grade October 2014

download word file, 2 pages 0.0

Making the Most of Assessment to Inform Instruction

Dr. Lou. H. Sanders

ETEC 367-01

Latonia Harney

September 16, 2014

Latonia Harney

Dr. Sanders

ETEC 367-01

September 16,2014

Author: Risko, V. J., & Walker-Dalhouse, D. (2010). Making the Most of Assessments to Inform Instruction. The Reading Teacher, 63(5), 420-422.

Summary: The authors in this study focused on how to make the best of assessments to better understand the needs of students. They touched on different types of assessments and the most common use of assessment is classroom-based assessments, which is commonly used for differentiated instruction and Response to Intervention efforts. Classroom-based assessments can be trusted and are usable however researchers found that classroom-based assessments often fail to measure deep comprehension or comprehension processes, such as how students organize and represent knowledge and their use of strategies. The second type of assessment the authors touched on was formative assessments. According to Popham, formative assessments are the forms of tests that can affect instructions and when used appropriately are associated with students gains. Researchers Black and William concluded that when teachers used formative assessments to guide their instruction, students made gains that were considered large and meaningful. The last type assessment discussed in the article was multimodel assessments, which represent the multiple ways students engage in literacy activities both in and out of school. In this type of assessment students compose multimedia texts with the use of low cost digital cameras, computers and nonlinear authoring tools. Multimodel assessments are also effective for assessing English Language Learners as well.

Conclusion: Good use of classroom-based assessments relies on the teacher abilities to create assessments based on instructional goals, systematic and frequent gathering of data and direct applications to instructional adjustments when necessary. Teachers should develop assessments that are multidimensional, formative and...