Assessment Options
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Transcript of Assessment Options
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Running head: ASSESSMENTS 1
Comparing and Contrasting Assessment Options
Amanda Brightman-Uhl
University of New England
EDU 722
Audrey Bartholomew
September 20, 2012
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ASSESSMENTS 2
Assessment can be an interesting topic for any special education teacher. Not
only do our students take the general education classroom assessments, district and
state required assessments, often with modifications, but they also take yearly
diagnostic tests to see if they meeting IEP goals and objectives. I decided to compare
and contrast formative and summative assessment. Even though a lot of different
assessments are required throughout the year, I still feel that if I am organized and
consistent I can choose what types of assessment are best for my special education
students. Being a teacher of students with moderate to severe behavior problems and
autism, I often have to get very creative, formative and summative assessment can
greatly help me assess my students knowledge, if done correctly.
Formative assessment occurs in the short term, as learners are in the process of
making meaning of new content and integrating it into what they already know.
Feedback to the learner is almost immediate, to help the learner be able to change
his/her behavior and understandings in the right direction. Some examples of how I use
formative assessment are conversations with the student one on one, asking to the
point questions about the learned information, quick matching games and many
observations, just to name a few. I also do a lot of closure activities to see what areas
they may need to spend a bit more time on. I prefer formative assessment over all
others for my special education students. I like the fact that formative assessment can
be as informal as observing the learner's work or as formal as a written test. Formative
assessment is the most powerful type of assessment for improving student
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understanding and performance. My students need the immediate feedback and
constant checking and data recording on their understanding.
ASSESSMENTS 3
Summative assessment usually takes place at the end of a large chunk of
learning, with the results being primarily for the teacher's or school's use. Results more
than likely take a longer period of time to be returned to the student or parent, feedback
to the student is usually very limited, and the student usually has no opportunity to be
reassessed. For example I personally give all my students three basic summative
assessments at the end of each year, The Woodcock Johnson, The Kaufman and
KeyMath. This type of assessment is very important to me and gives present levels of
educational performance for each of my students at the end of a long chunk of material,
in my case, the whole year. This lets me know if my students are progressing in those
key academic areas, if not I take a look at the curriculum and think of new ways to
better teach this particular student. I also use my summative assessment results to write
my students IEP goals and objectives along with the common core standards. Salvia,
Ysseldyke & Bolt (2013) state that a students skill development is a fundamental
consideration in planning instruction, this is what I use my results for.
When comparing and contrasting formative and summative assessment its
important to remember one is both can be effective if done correctly. When researching
about the general consensus of the strengths and weaknesses between the different
types of assessment, McAlpine (2002) talks about both types of assessment and why
and when you would use each. Formative assessment can be labor intensive and take
more time than summative, feedback needs to be given almost immediate for it to make
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a real impact, with summative the feedback is typically not immediate. Formative should
be done often and on a continual basis to check for understanding while teaching a
specific unit of study, while summative is typically given at the end of a unit or chunk of
ASSESSMENTS 4
study. Formative assessment is also more open to interpretation than summative, using
more personal opinion while summative assessments give specific scores. McAlpine
(2002) states that formative assessment allows students and other interested parties to
form a more detailed opinion of their abilities, which can then be used to inform further
study, concentrating students efforts on the more appropriate areas and hence
improving overall performance. While summative generally provides a concise summary
of a student s abilities which the general public can easily understand either as a
pass/fail. Salvia et al. (2013) points out that teachers should not rely solely on a single
summative assessment to evaluate student achievement after a course of instruction. I
would have to agree with this. However, instructors can facilitate reliability, for example,
using a rubric and allowing the students to have copies of it, that is one method for
ensuring reliability when grading a paper. If the rubric is well designed, several
instructors could score the same paper using the rubric and arrive at similar scores.
This is what the mainstream teachers do at my school because we have three to four of
each grade level K-8. The key with summative assessment is be as consistent as
possible.
The validity of both formative and summative assessments can be high if done in
the correct way. Validity really mean that your assessment is measuring what its
intended to measure. Since the teacher is in control of the environment it is taken in and
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when it is taken, its safe to say the results will be valid. Although, just because they are
valid for the current teachers purposes doesn't necessarily mean they are valid in a
standardized way. With any type of teacher graded assessment there is always room
for personal interpretation with makes any assessment technically, less valid. What it
also does in my opinion, is give a better picture of the students real abilities because
the
ASSESSMENTS 5
teacher knows the student. Black & William (1998) discuss the key factors that
influence the validity of formative assessment as; the teachers devotion to helping
student learn,
students caring about learning and wanting to improve, that teachers are encouraging,
constructive and sensitive to student's feelings, that teachers identify and explain the
qualities sought, students are understanding clearly what is needed and teacher sets
standards appropriate to students through descriptions and examples, and that
standards are explained and students understand and accepted them as appropriate.
As you can see, formative assessment is done often but takes a lot of thoughtful
planning to be affective. Even though formative assessment does not seem as reliable
as summative because of its less concrete results, it actually takes more effort and
planning to do it effectively. The more it is done and the correct practices are used, the
more fluid and valid the process becomes.
I find it evident that assessment, diagnostic, formative, and summative are a
critical component of education. Hence, it is the responsibility of educators to utilize
assessment in an effective manner, keeping in mind the purposes of, and principles
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behind it. I find it especially crucial that we investigate and utilize diagnostic and
formative/summative assessment, all which in my opinion are underused yet important
components of the educational process.
ASSESSMENTS 6
References
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning.
Assessment in Education, 5, 7-74.
McAlpine, M. (2002). Principles of assessment. Retrieved from:
http://www.caacentre.ac.uk/dldocs/Bluepaper1.pdf
Salvia, J., Ysseldyke, J. E., & Bolt, S. (2013).Assessment in special
and inclusive education. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.