Classroom Assessments that Guide Instruction and Interventions
High expectations without a means of measurement are hollow.
-Samuel Casey Carter
When testing is done most educators feel as though the assessment
is not indicative of what they have actually taught the students. Therefore, when a district assessment is
given and we have an opportunity to look over the test to make suggestions, we
need to take advantage.
In the assessment realm we have summative/formative and they
both have a purpose of validating our instruction. When we look at the end of the year STAAR
test, the results mostly come in at a time when we have little to no control
over re-teaching the materials left un-mastered. However, if we properly use the formative assessments
we will have a better gauge as to the areas of need when it comes to the end of
year examination.
Creating assessments that are used to help guide instruction
and interventions is instrumental to the development of an exceptional system. At Carpenter we will develop at least 2
questions per subject area that can be used for our unit exams and assist us in
building better lesson plan/interventions that will address student needs.
Articulation Meetings where the data is broken down and
action is taken to assist students will be very important to the overall
success of our campus. These meetings
will take place following the administration of the test and guide our
instruction/interventions directly following the administration. We will not remain stale on our offering of
instruction if it is showing not to work for a student. Our primary goal is to educate and reach each
student no matter what level they are operating on.
Students should work with the teachers to examine the
testing results and build future goals based on their performance. This will also directly relate to our Goal
work that we send home with students versus the traditional home work that we
have been accustomed to from the past.
How will you go about informing the students of the value of the actual assessments? What methods will you use to gain buy-in from
the students to ensure our campus wide goal of defying the odds is met?
The next area of using class goals to gain the whole class
buy-in was very enlightening. The
examples given will be a great lead in to our 1st Marzano
instructional strategy of Similarities and Differences. We can utilize these
strategies at the beginning of the year to introduce goal setting/strategies
that we will use. The students should be
able to share with any stakeholder their individual goals and talk about the
goal work they will use to make it to the goal.
How will we involve parents in the conversation of goal setting and the
ultimate results that we want as a campus?
