My experience with assessment within my practica
During my practicum, I had the opportunity to implement a variety of assessment types. I used rubrics with space to insert comments or quote an idea heard from a particular student, I assessed work based on the “I Can” statement set for the lesson, and I kept track of the student responses from classroom discussions and interactions.
My personal favourite way to keep track of a student’s progress was through the use of a rubric and a clipboard. For lessons, I found it simple to keep track of a response or proof of learning through jotting notes down as I went. Having a clipboard with the rubric for the particular lesson on the very top meant that I could complete the lecture or discussion portion of the lesson, keep the response of the learner in my mind, and write the response or note down on my clipboard as the students moved into their activity. I also found this to fit my own organizational strategies, as I work best with lists and notes. This meant that I had somewhere to collect these observations of the students where I could look back to when finishing assessments.
Another way of practicing assessment for learning would be through extending wait times for students to respond. I would pose a question and acknowledge how many students were ready to respond by saying “I see three friends ready to answer, let’s give our other friends a minute to think on the question.” I noticed that this strategy opened more students up to respond, and this allowed me to have a greater choice on who to select to answer my posed question. I really appreciated this strategy when collecting formative assessments on the students, as the students who were less likely to raise their hand to respond would be then more likely to raise their hand. I would have the opportunity to see where their understanding of the lesson was at. Wait time allowed for my collection of notes to touch on more students during discussion or carpet times.
I also found that using rubrics with colour-coding helped me to see which students needed more one-on-one instructional time. I used green to indicate to myself that this student was independent within the task, and met the understanding needed to progress into the next lesson. Yellow indicated that the student was mostly independent, although they may still need some support. Red meant that the student would not be ready to progress yet and to spend more time with the student to ensure that they could understand the subject during the next lesson. With the colour code, I was able to visualize where the learning was at for the class as a whole and demonstrated when the learners were ready for new material.
A few links to start with or refer to:
Transforming Assessment – BC’s New Curriculum
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/node/88
BC’s K-12 Assessment System – BC’s New Curriculum
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/assessment
Dylan Wiliam – YouTube – Assessment for Learning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiu-jY-xaPg
Dylan Wiliam – YouTube – Assessment Strategies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcJdZGz6ifY
Dylan Wiliam – YouTube – Formative Assessment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYdVe5O7KBE
Assessment: The Bridge Between Teaching and Learning – from Voices in the Middle, Volume 21, Number 2, December 2013
https://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/VM/0212-dec2013/VM0212Assessment.pdf