P3: Practice standards-based assessments

At the beginning of the academic year, my teammates and I set up half hour appointments of reach student, meeting them one on one in order to assess alphabetic knowledge, number knowledge, and writing ability.  These meetings provide great insight into where a student is academically, emotionally, and behaviorally.

Throughout the year, we assess our students formatively and summatively.  Formative assessments are done in whole class or small group, letting us know where our students are in their understanding of the concepts being taught.  As a team we discuss different methods used to formatively assess our students for each subject.  I often will turn formative assessments for phonemic awareness into a game, asking, “Show me with your fingers how many sounds do you hear in ___?”  Students stretch out the word into its sound and hold up fingers, checking in with each other to see if peers are showing the same number of fingers.  Then comes the fun with me calling on students in rapid order, “John, tell me the first sound! Scott, tell me the second sound! Sue, tell me the third sound!”  Each student replies in order.  Reteaching occurs quickly if needed and then the students write the word.  Summative assessments are reviewed and discussed by the grade level team, adjusted for student understanding of directions, materials and manipulatives planned and prepared if we feel they are needed, assessments given, and assessments reviewed by the team.  This allows us to see if one of us is teaching a subject really well; we then look at teaching methods in order to improve.

I selected P3, practice standards based assessments, because these types of assessments allow us to compare individual student and whole class progress.  This comparison allows us, as teachers, to see where we can improve in our profession.