Assessment

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 learned about assessment, I am going to use informal assessment as much as possible.  I know that I have to use a lot of formal assessment because it is required, and I think it is good to use, but I think informal assessment is a lot more helpful because you can use it on a daily basis.

In the classroom I am observing, our teacher taught cause and effect relationships in small groups.  I believe she had just introduced the topic the day before, so what we observed was her really trying to get them to grasp the concept.  They read a picture book and she helped them identify a few cause and effect relationships.  Then they had to write 3 cause and effect relationships on a sheet of paper that she took up.  This was a great example of informal assessment to see if they understood the concept.  

If I were the teacher and continued teaching cause and effect relationships, I think I would do another informal assessment by having them do an exit pass and giving me an example of a cause and effect relationship that they thought of themselves.  The day after that, I might have them draw me a picture of a cause and effect relationship.  This gives them a little creativity but still demonstrates whether or not they can come up with another cause and effect relationship on their own and represent it.

At the end of the week, I would have a formal assessment.  I would have them read a picture book on their own and have them identify 5 cause and effect relationships.  If they have truly grasped the concept, identifying 5 should not be a problem at all.  This will show me whether they understand or if they are still having trouble.

Here is a helpful video I found about formal and informal assessment.