Case
Assess...assess...assess

In East County School, teachers are expected to assess...assess...assess. They give pre and post tests for each unit and informally assess students throughout units to assess student learning. Sally is a teacher at this school and now the county is requiring teachers to start giving quick 5 question formative assessments on Monday and Friday to determine student growth. Sally's students already complain that they test too much. What is the point of all this testing and is it really providing useful data that could not be achieved in another fashion?

Posted on: 10/19/14 | Views: 945
Solution #1
The good thing about formative assessments is that they don't have to be paper/pencil assessments. You can incorporate other ways to assess your students without them actually knowing that they are being assessed. Google formative assessments and look at all the possibilities.
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Solution #2
If the assessments are used correctly, they can provide valuable information. However, I do agree that the testing in this case is a little excessive. I suggest using tickets out the door as assessment methods or the Monday and Friday assessments can be delivered with technology, such as clickers or online quiz programs. Students may enjoy the more interactive aspect of these programs.
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Solution #3
I think that students do need to be assessed frequently, but maybe you should adopt different methods of assessment other than just giving five questions for students to answer. Class discussion, student self assessment, etc. could be useful strategies for assessment to still collect meaningful data. I can see where students feel that they are being assessed in the same way too often.
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Solution #4
Try other types of assessment and try to make games out of it. Regardless of whether or not all the testing is necessary, if administration insists, that is just how it has to be.
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Solution #5
The problem is that students feel that they are assessed too often. I'm not familiar with the quick 5 assessment you mentioned, but I do think it is very important to formatively assess students on a regular basis. There are many ways to do this without the students even knowing they are being assessed. Some of those ways are through observations, discussions, tickets out the door, etc. The most important thing to consider is that if teachers are not using the data from the assessments to drive their instruction, the assessments are pointless.
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