Philosophy of Assessment

The main forms of assessment are formative, summative, diagnostic, peer, and self-
assessment. The purpose of all assessments is to evaluate student learning or understanding. It
is hard to prioritize some forms of assessment over others, but I believe that diagnostic and
formative assessment are particularly meaningful in teaching. Diagnostic assessment is crucial
for the planning process because it lets the teacher know what background knowledge and
information the students are coming into the classroom with. This way we know where to start
the learning process. Formative assessment plays a significant role in teaching as well because
this is where we do a quick check in with the class to find out if our students are understanding
the lesson so far. Teachers should use formative assessments continuously throughout their
lessons to get a sense of how the class is doing. This is where we can determine which students
need more help and which are getting it the first time through. A teacher who is formally
assessing the class might notice that the class is struggling with a particular concept and thus
choose to make some in-the-moment instructional changes to make sure students have a
concrete understanding of the topic.
Self-assessment and peer assessment both keep students accountable. During self-
assessment students are being reflective and looking into their personal understanding. They
can check the rubric they were given and make sure they fulfilled each requirement, they can
internalize what they learned (or be honest with themselves on what they didn’t learn), and
they can revise their work if they notice they can make it stronger. During peer assessment,
students are evaluating the work of others and sharing a fresh perspective on their partner’s
work. This allows students to take a second glance at their work and make it better. Diagnostic,
formative, and summative assessment all support students because it allows the teacher to
discover what concepts need to be retaught, which areas that students need to be more
challenged in, and places that students could use more scaffolding. Again, the purpose of
assessment is to inform the teacher what students know and whether they need to reteach
with intervention or different methods, or if they should move on to the next topic.
Assessment should be intentionally linked with the standards and learning objectives of
each lesson. The term backwards planning refers to the way that teachers plan a lesson first
with creating learning goals that reflect standards, then how they will assess whether students
accomplished these goals, and finally with how they will carry out the lesson- not the other way
around. Every lesson should be built around a specific standard and include an assessment that
will point out whether students grasped the information taught. I think performance tasks are
highly valuable and involve critical thinking from students. Performance tasks usually include
conceptual understanding, procedural skill, and problem-solving. I believe there should always
be multiple means of assessment because this gives teachers a range of data to work with and
learn from. It also benefits the students because they can show their learning in different ways.
Whether it is by self-revision, peer grading, formative/summative assessment, or if they want to
write out their answers, make a video, or tell the teacher- students should have the right to
display their learning in the way they deem most appropriate. I realize school, district, and state
testing can be extremely difficult for some students who are not natural test-takers, but I see
the way that they benefit our education system. I have given lots of universal screeners to my
students and there is value in having one standard screener that we can all retrieve data from.
This kind of data is important because whoever gets the results of this kind of testing can
determine areas of weakness or strength and make changes in classroom teaching to address
these struggles in the future.

Philosophy of Assessment
Insufficient Poor Satisfactory Good Excellent Total
12.9 and below 13-14.9 14-15.9 16-17.9 18-20
Explanation Lack of Inadequate Adequate Informative, Elucidatingly
of the explanation of explanation of explanation thorough informative,
different
forms of
the major the major of the major explanation of thorough
assessment forms of forms of forms of the major explanation of
and how they assessment assessment assessment forms of the major
are used. with little to with some assessment forms of
no examples examples for with good assessment and
for how they how they are examples for a variety of
are implemented how they are examples for
implemented in the implemented how they are
in the classroom in the implemented in
classroom classroom the classroom
Philosophy Total lack of Inadequate, Moderately Insightful Rich, insightful
regarding the meaningful simplistic, insightful philosophy philosophy
purpose (or
the “why”)
explanation of unrealistic, or philosophy showing showing
for different philosophy of unsympathetic regarding the strong thinking original
forms of different philosophy of purpose of regarding the thinking
assessment forms of the different different purpose of regarding the
assessment forms of forms of different forms purpose of
assessment assessment of assessment different forms
of assessment
5.9 and below 6-6.9 7-7.9 8-8.9 9-10
Philosophy of Failure to Poorly Adequately Well- Extremely
the role of provide a developed developed developed well-developed
assessments
in supporting
meaningful philosophy of philosophy of philosophy of philosophy of
students and philosophy of assessments assessments assessments assessments
holding them assessments regarding regarding regarding regarding
accountable regarding student student student student support
student support and support support and and
support and accountability and/or accountability accountability
accountability accountability
.
Point Comments: Final
Chart: Score:
45-50 A
 40-4.4 B
35-3.9 C
30-3.4 D
29.9 and
below: Not
yet!