Assessment Reflection

Formative Assessment
The formative assessment that I chose to reflect on was a “ticket out” form of
assessment. I had students take this assessment after my first lesson, where I
introduced a new text from our reading curriculum. The students got practice making
inferences about a text and I wanted to check for any connections to the text. Building
on background knowledge is a great strategy to enhance reading comprehension and
this form of assessment allowed me to view the student perspective on the topic of the
text.

For example, my emerging student had a bad experience with a close family member
moving away. After reading his response, I was able to have a conversation with the
class about the positives and negatives of moving. Students made connections to our
main character and were able to make inferences about character traits and character
changes based on our discussion as well as from evidence in the text. My proficient
student was also able to make connections and he followed instructions to use abstract
nouns to describe how he might feel. I thought that information could have been more
in depth if I had asked to use complete sentences. My beyond proficient student wrote
abstract nouns and sentences as evidence. I think having students write sentences
would have been beneficial to my lesson and further lesson planning because those
could be great talking points. I could even have students stick the notes on their desk
and do a gallery walk at my next lesson to get them more engaged.

The informal way that I graded this formative assessment consisted of whether students
followed instructions, and if students stayed on topic. My emerging student expressed
that he didn’t like to move but failed to use abstract nouns even though he stayed on the
topic. My proficient student used more than one abstract noun and my beyond
proficient student went beyond by adding sentences to explain.

Summative Assessment
The summative assessment consisted of a graphic organizer to compare and contrast
characters from two readings. I held a class discussion about the reading we had
completed the prior week as review. Students had to show mastery in making inference
while comparing and contrasting the two stories. Grading consisted of emerging,
proficient, and beyond proficient. Students who were emerging were not able to
compare stories or added little to no evidence in either column. Proficient students
were able to fill out at least 2 slots on each column providing evidence from the text.
Finally, my beyond proficient students were able to fill out all three slots on both
columns with evidence from the text. I instructed students that this would be the way I
would grade their assessments and I had seven out of 20 students beyond proficient, 10
students who were proficient, and three students who were emerging.
In comparison to my prior assessment students did similar. My emerging student from
my prior assessment still struggled to come up with evidence from the text. While my
proficient student from the prior assessment had a beyond proficient on this
assessment. My beyond proficient student was able to articulate himself quite well and
remained beyond proficient. After reflecting on this data, I was able to conclude that the
formative assessment helped me build connections to the reading. One thing that I
think would have helped my emerging student, and one that I would do differently is to
have asked my emerging student if he understood instruction and expectations on
summative assessment. This student gets distracted quite easily and I think that
perhaps a one-on-one explanation of expectations along with confirmation of
understanding of those expectations may have made the difference. As far as my
summative assessment, I believe it was successful because the curriculum is well
scripted, and it has plenty of class discussion opportunities as well as partner talk. We
also dove deep into the reading by making personal connections and being intentional
about making inferences as a class. Students were also able to practice using a
graphic organizer similar to the one that I used as a summative assessment, so
students were familiar with it.
I can easily see the great value of the formative assessments in this and other lessons
that I have delivered. I have been able to make changes to my summative
assessments thanks to all of the checking for understanding that goes on before that. I
must say for this segment most of my formative assessment was done through
discussions, which were very effective in the success of this lesson.