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Some assessment strategies besides traditional testing are

Performance assessment involves presenting students with a task, project, or investigation, then observing them, interviewing them, and examining what they produce to assess what they actually know and can do. Performance assessment focuses on process as well as product.

Performance assessment gives information about a student's ability to

  • use concepts and skills
  • reason soundly and raise questions
  • think flexibly, changing strategies when appropriate
  • use manipulative materials and equipment, calculators, and computers
  • work in a group
  • persist, concentrate, and work independently
  • communicate and use subject language through discussing, writing, and explaining his or her ideas and questions
  • observe carefully to infer and formulate hypotheses
  • design and conduct experiments and investigations

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Open-Ended Questions:  Students are asked to respond to questions or solve problems to which a variety of successful responses are possible.

Open-ended questions give information about a student's ability to

  • recognize the essential points of the problem
  • organize and interpret information
  • make generalizations
  • write for a given audience
  • understand basic concepts
  • use appropriate language and representation
  • demonstrate originality or creativity

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Investigations:  Investigations involve explorations of questions that may be related to other subject areas.  Investigations deal with problem posing as well as problem solving.

Investigations give information about a student's ability to

  • identify and define a problem
  • make a plan
  • create and interpret strategies
  • collect and record needed information
  • organize information and look for patterns
  • persist, looking for more information if needed
  • discuss, review, revise, and explain results.

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Journals:  A journal is a personal, written expression of thoughts.  Students express ideas and feelings, ask questions, draw diagrams and graphs, explain processes used in solving problems, report on investigations, and respond to open-ended questions.  The information provided by journals can be useful to teachers in modifying the program to meet individual needs.

Journals allow opportunities for students to

  • formulate, organize, internalize and evaluate concepts
  • clarify thinking
  • identify their own strengths, weaknesses, and interests
  • reflect on new learning
  • use the language of the subject to describe learning.

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Observations: Research has consistently shown that the most reliable method of evaluation is the ongoing, in-class observation of students by teachers. Students should be observed as they work individually and in groups.  Teachers may find it helpful to use checklists, sets of questions, or journals to guide their observations as well as to observe small numbers of students and aspects of development at any given time.

Systematic, ongoing observation gives information about students'

  • attitudes towards the subject
  • feelings about themselves as learners of the subject
  • specific areas of strength and weakness
  • preferred learning styles
  • areas of interest
  • social development
  • development of the subject language and concepts.

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 Conferences and Interviews:  An interview includes a planned sequence of questions, whereas a conference implies discussion, with student and teacher sharing ideas.  The main purpose of  both is to explore the student's subject thinking and level of understanding of a particular concept or procedure.  Most should be brief and informal and should occur naturally in the course of everyday experiences.  Putting students at ease and being a good, nonjudgmental listener is important.

Conferences and interviews give information about students' ability to

  • explain the process used to arrive at a solution
  • justify their thinking (explain and support their reasoning)
  • suggest an alternative strategy
  • discuss their likes and dislikes
  • discuss their perceived strengths and weaknesses.

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Dr. Crawford, Cathy and Maya

Portfolios:  A portfolio is a showcase for student work, a place where many types of work can be collected.  It provides a comprehensive view of the student's progress in attitude and understanding.  The student, with the teacher's assistance chooses the work to be included in the portfolio.

Student portfolios can provide

  • evidence of performance

  • evidence of growth or change over a period of time

  • a permanent record of student performance

  • opportunities for students to practise assessing and selecting their own work.

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Student Self Assessment:  This promotes the development of metacognitive ability (the ability to reflect critically on one's own reasoning). It also assists students to take ownership of their learning, and to become independent thinkers.  Self assessment can be done by means of a questionnaire, following  a cooperative activity or project, asking how well the group functioned, or through daily writing in a journal.

Teachers can use student self assessment to determine

  • whether their is a change in growth in the student's attitudes, understanding, and achievement

  • whether a student's beliefs about his or her performance corresponds to actual performance

  • whether the student adn teacher have similar views of expectations and criteria for evaluation.

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