Formative Assessment

• What is your philosophy on assessment? 

     My philosophy on assessment is that formative assessment is incredibly important. Assessing students as they are learning the material is necessary to see how well students are performing. 

Rick Wormeli tells us that formative assessment has the greatest impact on student achievement. Kids can learn without grades but they can not learn without a formative assessment. If we focus on summative assessment, students don't learn as well. 

     When we focus less on grades and focus more on formatively assessing students, we see an increase in student achievement and mastery. Alfie Kohn discusses all of the negative impacts of grades on student achievement. He tells us that grades reduce the students interest in learning itself, reduce students preference for challenging tasks, and reduce the quality of students thinking. While I think deadlines are necessary to make sure students stay focused on the task at hand, I don't see the importance in grades. I agree that our focus should be more on formative assessment and students success and achievement, instead of summative assessments and grades.

• What are your impressions about the 2 formative assessment technologies (PearDeck & EduCanon) Scott shared?

     PearDeck is an interactive presentation which engages students using a polling system. I think this is a good technique to use to see if students are understanding concepts during the learning process. We can use polls to see the percentage of the class that knows an answer. We can also have students write definitions or answers to questions and submit them to the teacher. I would like to use something along the lines of PearDeck when doing any lectures to my students to be sure that they are understanding the material being presented. 

     EduCanon is a great source to help teachers flip their classrooms. Interactive questions can be added to videos to help teachers gauge students learning. I really like this tool a lot. I'm a big proponent for the flipped classroom style and I think a tool like this can be very beneficial in students learning process. The teacher can tell by looking at responses that students learning is taking place. 

• What was the most striking thing you took away from Scott's presentation? How will it impact your own learning?

     Scott really highlighted the importance between formative and summative assessments. He also showed us in the video two different tools to use for formative assessment during the learning process. PearDeck and EduCanon are two tools that I will likely use in the future. When it comes to my own learning, I will try to start taking tests/ doing practice problems during the learning process instead of after. 

     Scott also brought up many other topics related to formative assessments. Knowing the standards for what I am teaching is incredibly important. Pre-assessing students is also something that Scott talked about. By giving a pre-assessment, we can see what students know and don't know. Socrative was also discussed. It can be used to quiz students and to give us results regarding each question on the quiz. We can then analyze our teaching style and students' learning using the results given. This was another handy tool that he presented us with that I will more than likely use in my teaching.