Week 3, Assignment 2: Assessments

Discuss what assessments are needed to measure students' learning outcomes and how teachers can address these common core learning standards if you have students of various reading levels.

A critical element of any set of educational standards is the ability to effectively assess student understanding.  Without such measurement, teachers, educational leaders, parents and other interested parties would not have data to determine the level of performance that students and schools are expected to meet.  Assessment data can also drive instructional strategy allowing educators to learn, improve and share. 

Assessments should be designed with the specific goal of measuring understanding in relation to the learning objective or standard. As outlined in backward design principles like the Understanding by Design framework, created by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, assessment development should immediately follow the creation of the goal of the lesson.  Such alignment ensures measurement of the proper data that shows progress towards the learning objective.  With a focus on higher order thinking skills in the Common Core State Standards, assessments should be designed to emphasize real world problems, encourage inquiry and exploration, and give students opportunities to demonstrate understanding in meaningful ways.  Adding such relevance throughout instruction, including assessments, will engage students in an increasingly rigorous curriculum.  Using these guiding principles, educators can now exercise creativity and careful consideration to create effective assessments before they even plan the associated classroom activities. 

Additional attention is required to measure the understanding of students of various abilities.  By designing assessments with flexibility, educators can meet students’ needs in similar ways that they differentiate instruction.  For example, students can be given several ways to demonstrate their reading comprehension.  By giving such options, students of varying abilities and preferences can choose the method that will give them the best chance to demonstrate their understanding and skill.  Options for performance-based assessments could include a written essay, journal writing, one-on-one conference, class discussion, online presentation, or some form of art.  Not only will the results provide teachers with information about each student’s progress towards the learning objective, strengths and developmental opportunities, it can drive instruction, scaffolding and intervention.