When one thinks of education, we think of schools with organized classrooms, brightly decorated bulletin boards and students with the latest back packs lining the halls ready to start their day. But we cannot talk of education and schools without talking about assessments. Assessments are the means in which teachers determine if students have learned the intended objective. They are used for grade level placement, specific skill identification and even program and teacher evaluation.
Formative Assessment
Assessments cover a wide range of activities in the classroom including formative assessments. A formative assessment is an informal way to look at in progress indicators of student performance. Garrison and Ehringhaus, 2014, stated that, “when …show more content…
They are part of the classroom instruction and fit in seamlessly within the plans of the day. There are numerous formative assessments available for teachers to utilize in their classroom. The formative assessment is aligned to the goals the teachers have for student learning. Choosing the appropriate assessment helps the teacher become more effective at having the student’s responses become more rich in discussion and perform at higher levels of thinking and understanding. Formative assessments include the following: Commit and toss, Frayer Model, Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, and Two or Three before Me (Keeley and Tobey, 2011). Commit and Toss is an anonymous task for the students. The teacher presents a question for the students to respond to, when they are done, they crumble up the paper and toss them around the room until they are told to stop. The teacher than instructs them to read the response that they have in hand. They are only to read what is on the paper and not share any other their ideas. This gives the teacher a quick overview of the ideas of the class. Frayer Model is a graphic organizer used for vocabulary. In this format, the teacher can see the prior knowledge held by the student. The graphic organizer askes for a definition, characteristics, examples and non-examples of a vocabulary word. Another formative assessment is thumbs up, thumbs down. This provides a quick visual for the teacher as to whether the students are ready to move on to the next step. The students use their thumb to signal yes or no. The last example of a formative assessment is two or three before me. The purpose of this strategy is that it provides the opportunity for more students to share their ideas and prevents an individual student form dominating the class discussion. The rule is that at least two or three students must speak before the same person talks again. According to Militello and Heffernan,
Formative Assessment
Assessments cover a wide range of activities in the classroom including formative assessments. A formative assessment is an informal way to look at in progress indicators of student performance. Garrison and Ehringhaus, 2014, stated that, “when …show more content…
They are part of the classroom instruction and fit in seamlessly within the plans of the day. There are numerous formative assessments available for teachers to utilize in their classroom. The formative assessment is aligned to the goals the teachers have for student learning. Choosing the appropriate assessment helps the teacher become more effective at having the student’s responses become more rich in discussion and perform at higher levels of thinking and understanding. Formative assessments include the following: Commit and toss, Frayer Model, Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, and Two or Three before Me (Keeley and Tobey, 2011). Commit and Toss is an anonymous task for the students. The teacher presents a question for the students to respond to, when they are done, they crumble up the paper and toss them around the room until they are told to stop. The teacher than instructs them to read the response that they have in hand. They are only to read what is on the paper and not share any other their ideas. This gives the teacher a quick overview of the ideas of the class. Frayer Model is a graphic organizer used for vocabulary. In this format, the teacher can see the prior knowledge held by the student. The graphic organizer askes for a definition, characteristics, examples and non-examples of a vocabulary word. Another formative assessment is thumbs up, thumbs down. This provides a quick visual for the teacher as to whether the students are ready to move on to the next step. The students use their thumb to signal yes or no. The last example of a formative assessment is two or three before me. The purpose of this strategy is that it provides the opportunity for more students to share their ideas and prevents an individual student form dominating the class discussion. The rule is that at least two or three students must speak before the same person talks again. According to Militello and Heffernan,