There are many effective assessment techniques that teachers use on a regular basis. During my internship thus far, I have observed and implemented many assessment techniques that I have considered to be effective. Being in a kindergarten classroom there is a lot of informal assessment as opposed to formal assessment as the students are not involved in writing tests, quizzes, or papers. Three assessment techniques that I have observed and/or implemented in my classroom include simply observing the students, questioning, and authentic assessment through students reading baggy books and responding to them with writing and illustrations. I will elaborate on each of these below.
Observation is an assessment technique that my co-operating teacher and I do on a daily basis as I am sure many other teachers do. To ensure each student is assessed and assessed properly, we use checklists which list all of our expectations for the particular activity. I find having a checklist with all of the student’s names and the expectations give structure and purpose to the observation as you know what things you are specifically looking for. Being in a kindergarten classroom, I find observation to be one of the most effective assessment techniques. As I mentioned above, these young students are not involved in writing tests, etc. so a huge amount of the assessment is in fact done through observation. My co-operating teacher uses this assessment technique frequently and finds it to be very effective with her students. I have used observations in the classroom and have found it to be an effective technique also.
Questioning is another assessment technique that I consider to be effective. It is important to ask questions to check for students understanding. Sometimes it is not clear just through observation if students understand the concepts that you want them to. After the completion of an activity, I often get students together for a discussion where I ask them various questions to check for understanding. I find this technique to be very effective as it is quite obvious which students understand and which do not. When using this assessment technique it is important to remember to use open-ended questions as they require students to think and explain themselves as opposed to simply answering a question with a yes or no response. It is also important to have a classroom with mutual respect to create an atmosphere in which students feel comfortable to speak and answer questions with their teachers and peers present.
Lastly, using authentic assessment through students reading baggy books and responding to them using writing and illustrations is also an assessment technique that I consider to be effective. During my internship I have observed and implemented this assessment technique on a daily basis. The students are assessed individually on their reading skills as well as their understanding of the book through their verbal and written responses. The written responses are very brief as the students are in kindergarten. The students often draw pictures to illustrate what their book was about or what it meant to them. This assessment technique has been a very effective way for my co-operating teacher and I to assess our students as it would be hard to assess reading skills and understanding of a text in a larger group setting. The individual and small group assessment seems to work best for us and our students.
It is extremely important to have many effective assessment techniques to use daily in the classroom. I feel that in order for an assessment technique to be proven effective or not you need to try it out and see which techniques work best for you. Since beginning my internship, I have observed and implemented many techniques that I have found to be effective as well as some that have not been as effective. I consider the techniques that did not work as well to be a learning experience because you will never know if you don’t try. I am sure there are many other effective techniques that I will learn during the remaining weeks of my internship as well as in my future teaching career.