Page 218 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 9
Devin Mulville, Teaching Intern
Introduction
When I used to hear the word assessment I automatically thought of coloring in bubbles and filling the blanks and choosing between letters A, B, and C. To me, these tests were ways for teachers to see how well they could trick their students, not to see what they actually knew and had learned. I love math and to me assessments multiple choice true/false essay. Throughout my years as a student this was the structure of 90% of the tests I took and most of the time it was not the most effective way to prove my knowledge of material. Now that the tables have turned and I am now going to be the teacher who is doing the asses- sing, I have made a vow that I will never be the teacher who tries to trick my students or resorts to few or exclusively traditional formats when assessing my students. My problem prior to reading this chapter was I did not know how to go about evaluating my students in multiple and effective ways.
I was amazed by the number of ways a teacher can evaluate students. I realize now that not all the formats involve taking a writ- ten test. It is important that we switch up the formats to allow every student to be success- ful, just like how we change our lesson plans based on our students’ needs and background knowledge from year to year. Of course, all our assessment decisions must also be tied to the goals.
I found the use of portfolios particularly interesting. A portfolio can serve as a conduit for presenting a student’s longitudinal story and add to the teacher’s observations and
HOW CAN I ASSESS STUDENT LEARNING?
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TEACHER VOICE