Using formal assessment to measure student knowledge can come at several different points during your unit plan. Assessments preformed before a unit, while you are teaching the unit and after you are finished teaching the unit are all valid and helpful to a teacher, yet each serve different purposes. Understanding each assessment type is important to helping teachers fine tune their teaching skills.
Assessing Student Knowledge Before Teaching
It can be beneficial for a teacher to give a student an assessment before teaching a new unit. This will help the teacher know what information the students already know about the subject to be studied, and help the teacher focus her lessons. For example, when starting a unit on pets, you can ask students what pet are, what kinds of pets someone can have, and how to take care of the pets. This type of assessment is generally done through class discussion.
Assessing Student Knowledge During Teaching
While teaching a unit, it is important to informally assess student knowledge frequently. This ensures that the students understand what you are teaching, and will reveal any points that you may need to clarify or spend further study on. These types of ongoing assessments can be simple questioning to review pertinent information, journal entries about each days lessons, or projects that will reveal the level of student comprehension.
Assessing Student Knowledge After Teaching
Once a teacher has finished a unit with her students, it is important to give the students a formal assessment to see how well they learned the information. Remember that test results reflect how well you have taught the information so take time to reflect on the results of the tests to determine if your teaching strategy was effective, and what changes should be made for the next time.
Before writing your lesson plans for the unit, you should know what final assessment you will be giving your students to assess knowledge. This will help to focus your teaching. Also, be sure to give an authentic assessment for what you want the students to learn. Do not have the students write an essay after teaching them how to give a speech, or dribble a basketball.
Student assessment is vital to the role of a teacher, not only for the purposes of documenting student achievement, but for reflection on the teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom. Teachers can look at test results as a way to find areas they need to improve their instruction, and should include assessments at various points during each unit.
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Jennifer Wagaman - Jennifer is a mother of 2 and has both public, private and administrative experience in the education field.
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