14.2

(14.2) Consider norm referenced assessment and criterion referenced assessment. Are there advantages to both? Are there disadvantages?

By ranking test takers based on comparing their performances to that of their peers, norm referenced assessments such as IQ and developmental screening tests can help educators and families detect possible special needs in students. Other norm referenced assessments such as SAT, ACT, GRE help colleges make admission/scholarship decisions. Another advantage of norm referenced assessment is its practicality, or that it’s relatively easy for teachers/programs to give (one test for everyone). A disadvantage of norm referenced assessment, when applied as a grading system inside a classroom, is that it could potentially discourage students from helping one another (group study/peer tutoring, etc.) since others’ doing poorly is an advantage for one student under the norm referenced grading system. It might also discourage high achieving students from trying their best when their minimal efforts generate high rankings/grades. Similarly, it might be frustrating for low achieving students and discourage them from achieving their full potentials when their best efforts generate low rankings/grades.

Criterion referenced assessments report the students’ performances strictly based on whether they correctly answered a set of questions or not. They are helpful when educators need to find out whether or not the students have learned a particular knowledge or skill in a curriculum. The teacher can then go back to teaching the knowledge or skill when the students didn’t ace the test or move on to teaching a new knowledge or skill when the students aced the test. Another advantage of criterion referenced assessment is that it can be tailored to meet the student’s special needs (assessments based on IEP goals), thus helping the student in achieving his/her fullest potential. A disadvantage of criterion referenced assessments is that they usually cannot be generalized beyond any specific program or class. Another disadvantage is that criterion referenced assessments that all students can succeed in could potentially be difficult and time-consuming to develop (low practicality).

Selden 14.1 & 14.2

Chapter 14

(14.1) Think of a lesson plan from your licensure area. Knowing that assessment is an integral part of teaching, explain at least four informal and formal assessments that you will use in your lesson plan to provide you with feedback and involve the students in assessing their own learning.

 

From what I have experienced in the third grade classroom that I am in now, these students have to understand and identify shapes. These shapes include cylinders, rectangular prisms, squares, spheres, and triangles. 

For the first assessment, I would use a pre-assessment. This pre-assesment would be a short quiz that would include various pictures of shapes and the students would be required to identify the shape. Based on the results from the pre-assesment, I would better adapt my lessons for the days to follow.

The actual first day that the shapes are introduced, I would bring in items that were of those shapes. I would pass them around and let the students handle them. Following that, I would informally asses by holding up the objects and asking the students to volunteer their answers and identify the shapes. 

On the second day I would bring in magazines. The students would be instructed to search through the magazines and find pictures of objects that match the shapes that we talked about. This would be a formal assessment because the students would glue what they have found on to card stalk and share with the class. 

The next day, we would make shapes from toothpicks stuck together with dots. I would assign each student a different shape and they would have to go about creating it. This would serve as an informal assessment.

I think by including some of the activities listed above, my third grade class would certainly gain a better understanding of geometric shapes, especially because they have searched and identified as well as created the shoes. Everything was very hands on and would also provide me with feedback as to how my students are doing with understanding.

 

Chapter 14

(14.2) Consider norm referenced assessment and criterion referenced assessment. Are there advantages to both? Are there disadvantages?

 

I think that both types of assessments have their advantages and disadvantages. Norm-referenced assessments are a good tool to use to compare children to other students either in the class or in the school. This can provide data for the teachers and help them to better plan on how to instruct their students. They help teachers identify those students who are struggling as compared to other students. These tests though, are time consuming and do not really help pick out individual students strengths and weaknesses outside of the test.

Criterion-referenced tests help determine if a child has reached, fallen short, or exceeded the set expecations of a child of that grade and age. These tests porvide a good comparison to levels of achievement, but they do not provide a good comparison to other students of that age. They also may be difficult to create.

In summary, one type of test will not provide all of the feedback a teacher needs. There most likely needs to be a combination of types of tests used. Also, it is important to consider that frequent assessment is necessary for both teaches and students to determine progress.

 

Tabitha Cartwright 14.2

(14.2) Consider norm referenced assessment and criterion referenced assessment. Are there advantages to both? Are there disadvantages?
          Both types of assessments have advantages and disadvantages, but are also both extremely useful in the classroom.Criterion referenced assessments are based on the standards from the curriculum, and measure how well students are performing when judged against these predetermined standards. These types of test are important to determining how we are doing as teachers, and let us know what students have learned or what they might be struggling with. Criterion referenced tests also help us to set a level for minimum performance, such as establishing standards for students to pass on to the next skill level, or their need to stay on their current level for more practice. Basically, criterion referenced assessments allow for teachers to measure the progress of their students against predetermined standards, as well as to measure their own success as educators. The advantages of this type of test are that they are easily implemented in the classroom, they give educators insight into what students may require special services, and that they promote students' motivation for learning as they can be used to determine grades in a particular class. Some disadvantages may be that criterion referenced tests do not allow for varying abilities, may not account for students' various test taking abilities, and may not be a completely reliable means for testing for mastery.
          Norm referenced assessments are designed to test how well students are performing in comparison to their peers. An example would be the TCAP, which is scored by measuring which percentile a student falls into. The advantage to the norm referenced assessment is that it allows teachers to see where different students stand in terms of their mastery of a topic compared to their classmates. If there is a low variable in their particular class, but a high variable when compared to other students in the same age group, it may show the teacher's need for adapting their methods for the particular subject. However, if there is a high variable in that class, it may mean that some students may benefit from a different teaching style being implemented. It can also give teachers some insight into which students may require additional help or resources. Some disadvantages to norm referenced assessment would be that they do not account for differences in students' learning abilities, diverse backgrounds, or the fact that some students learning styles may not be in sync with the teaching methods being used.

Creating a Post

Good day, everyone.

This post serves as a tutorial for properly creating and labeling a post so it may be easily viewed by your colleagues.

To begin, locate the EP 401 blog from your Blogger dashboard.  This will require you to log in with your Google account.

Once you have located the EP 401 blog on your Blogger dashboard, click the "Create a new post" button.

This will take you to the "new post" page.

Before you begin typing your post, go ahead and label your post with your first and last name.  To add a label to your post, locate the "Labels" option in the right-sidebar.  You will need to label your post so others may find your posts to read and comment more easily.

Once you have located the "Labels" option in the right-sidebar, click it.  This will open a text box.  In this text box, please type your first and last name, as shown in the example.  Click "Done" when you are finished.

After you have labeled your post with your first and last name, you may continue writing your post as normal.  When you are satisfied with your post, click "Publish" to publish it to the blog.

Once you have published your post to the blog, check the right-sidebar on the main page for your label.

To view all posts by a single author (colleague), simply click their name.

NOTE:  Clicking a name under the "Contributors" section of the right-sidebar will NOT show you that person's posts.  Instead, it will take you to their Blogger profile.  You MUST label your posts for others to easily find them.

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I hope this posts helps!   If you have any further questions, feel free to email me at bobby.showalter@gmail.com.

 - B

QTC - Chapter 14, pt 1

(14.1) Think of a lesson plan from your licensure area. Knowing that assessment is an integral part of teaching, explain at least four informal and formal assessments that you will use in your lesson plan to provide you with feedback and involve the students in assessing their own learning.

Informal assessment takes place constantly throughout the course of a music lesson.  Asking students to play their individual parts alone or in their section, with quick, verbal feedback from the teacher is an example of informal assessment.  Students can also assess their peers in this way; allowing the ensemble time to openly critique itself is a great way to remove the "teaching" from the instruction and get students to listen to a voice other than the teacher's for help.  I can also ask students to listen to a recording of their performance and verbally critique and discuss possible failures or successes in the way they played the music.  Finally, I can illicit feedback from the ensemble to find out if a piece is too difficult or too easy for them, from their perspective.

Band directors often fail to successfully implement formal assessment in their lessons and curriculum.  While the best way to improve the quality of the ensemble is through constant informal assessment, formal assessments can help gauge where individual students are as musicians.  I can assign worksheets to identify chord progressions and intervals in the music we are playing.  Students can also be asked to listen to a recording of either themselves or another musician and answer specific questions about what they hear.  Assigning research projects based on compositions, composers, and other factors in music is a good assessment of a student's skills as a musicologist, not just an instrument-player.

 - B

Jenny Holt 14.1

Think of a lesson plan from your licensure area. Knowing that assessment is an integral part of teaching, explain at least four informal and formal assessments that you will use in your lesson plan to provide you with feedback and involve the students in assessing their own learning. 

For this example, I will be a 4th grade teacher introducing how human activities can affect the environment. For this lesson, I'll be introducing oil spills. The students will have a chance to simulate an oil spill and learn about ways to clean it up. There are plenty of opportunities for assessment in this activity. The majority of these opportunities are just through your own observation, but I have included several examples of how to include informal and formal assessment throughout. 

On the first day, I would read to my students the beginning pages of the book Oil Spill!  By Melvin Berger. This section of the book focuses on how oil spills happen and their environmental impact. During this read-a-loud I would stop to allow the students a chance to share their inferences and predications, along with other reading comprehension strategies. Through this questioning and discussion, I would be able to informally assess how much the students already know about oil spills and what they have learned from the read a loud. I would then be able to further explain the impact oil spills have on the environment and tie that in to other related concepts such as animal habitats and the food chain. I would not finish the book, just yet, as the end pages of the book introduce terminology and practices that are used in actual oil spill clean ups, today.

On the second day, I would begin with another type of informal assessment by having the students recall what we read about the day before by having them write down what they know about oil spills in their science journal. I would encourage them to think about what they might like to know, or what questions they may have.  I could later collect them, for an overview of what may need to be retaught. This will also get them involved in their own self-assessment, as they have the opportunity to explore what they know, what they may not know yet,  and what they want to know. 

After the journaling activity, I would tell the students that today they are going to be scientists who have been called to figure out a way to clean up an oil spill. The students would work in pairs for this activity. In front of them they will have a pan of water into which you would pour vegetable oil (mixed with cocoa powder to simulate crude oil). The students are then given materials such as a coffee filter, pipe cleaners, a spoon, a pipette, a sponge, etc. At this point in the activity I would pass out a worksheet for them to record their predictions, observations, and what actually happened. This worksheet would include questions that require them to apply previous knowledge (what they know about how oil behaves with water, potential environmental impacts, etc) and would be collected at the end of the activity, making it a formal assessment. While the students are experimenting with the activity and testing their predictions I would be walking around using guiding questions to help them think about what they are observing and relating it to the real world. This again, would be a type of informal assessment. (Can you tell I am a fan of informal assessment, yet?)

At the end of the activity, we would come together as a whole group and share what each team found. We would then read the end pages of the book Oil Spill! And compare their materials that worked best to actual oil clean up methods. We would then discuss why we even need oil in the first place and what every day products it is used in (transportation when made into gasoline, plastic, aspirin, detergents...). You could extend this activity by having students think about what they could do to help prevent oil spills (using less electricity, etc.). At the end of the lesson I would ask the students to explain in their own words why we need oil, how spills can impact animals and the environment, and to identify at least 2 clean up methods using the correct terminology.  I would have them write this down on a post it as their "ticket out the door" and post it on the door as they leave for the day. This would serve as a formal assessment. 

Ciera Rinck 14.2

Consider norm referenced assessment and criterion referenced assessment. Are there advantages to both? Are there disadvantages?

Assessment is an important part of the educational process.  Assessments can help students and teachers alike when evaluating where a student is or the progress that is being made.  Norm referenced testing compares a students performance to their peers, while criterion referenced assessments indicate mastery or non-mastery of specific topics.  I think that there are advantages and disadvantages to both forms of the assessments.  
Norm referenced assessment would be useful in determining how students differ from one another and it could be used to see how they stack up to other students their same age or grade level.  Norm referenced assessment would allow a teacher to easily pick out where a student is struggling and then more attention and focus could be yielded for that area of study.   Some disadvantages to this test is that some students will be guaranteed a failing grade and the students who perform above average aren't necessarily "A" performing students, there are many factors that go into assessment, personally I am not a fan of norm-referenced testing--I don't think it is necessary or reliable to compare students to others as often as we do in today's educational environments.  Other disadvantages to norm referenced testing is that they do not supply quality measures of a students overall skills or knowledge and they are timely and costly in nature--teachers and students give up weeks of the year to study, prepare, and take norm referenced assessments. 
Criterion referenced assessments are based on a predetermined scale or criteria.  Some advantages would be that this kind of evaluation sets minimum performance expectations and demonstrates what students can or cannot do in relation to important standards.  Criterion referenced assessments allow for recognition of improvements among a students overall achievement.  One disadvantage I can think of is that there is no way to compare the data gained from this type of assessment to compare to other students or schools--so it may seem unreliable to some.  A criterion referenced assessment could be very difficult to create--and could not be used to determine the set of skills beyond a particular subject area.  
Overall, choosing how and in what ways to assess your students can be a very difficult task to complete.  I think the best way to choose assessment methods would be to mix it up throughout the school year--after all, assessing the same way every time does not seem to leave much room for students to demonstrate all that they know or have learned.