Ideas

1. At the end of each month, I pass out a small sheet of paper that has 3 questions that my students have to answer on it. It reads: Name: Date: Three things that have helped me learn: 1. 2. 3.

2. One thing the teacher could do to help me learn more:

3. One thing I could do to help me learn more:

Assessment Cards: Identifying the Learning Goals. __[]__ 

Verbal Assessments
> > Verbal assessments can also be applied to guided reading. When teaching reading to children in the primary and intermediate grades, small discussion groups can enhance student understanding. These groups can also give the teacher an idea of what concepts or elements need additional instruction.
 * While formal or written assessments are necessary for some topics, verbal assessments can be useful in a variety of settings. Asking students to explain what they know is indeed a complex skill. Students must use concise language to describe what they've learned and must be able to answer questions and synthesize information. Verbal assessments can include any of three considerations. They can be spot questioning during or after a lecture or lesson. Second, they can be lesson "recaps" or "closures," where teachers ask students to explain something new they've learned during the class. Or they can be verbal quizzes where students explain answers to the teacher's questions.

Summary Assessments

 * Instead of giving formal true-and-false or matching-type tests, teachers can ask students to write summaries of what they've learned. These summary assessments can work in a similar way as essay tests. However, it is important to understand what the summary is supposed to be assessing. If a teacher is interested in knowing what content a student has mastered, grading for spelling and grammar may be unnecessary and seem punitive. True summary assessments allow students to express what they've learned without additional requirements or limits.

Illustration Assessments

 * Assessments can also be made from illustrations the student draws or computer-generated illustrations. Students are often able to see the "big picture" for themselves once the diagram, map or picture is complete. A culminating activity that results in an illustration can also allow students who are better at drawing than writing express what they know without any obstacles.

Role Playing Assessments

 * Role playing assessments are often popular with students because they can be a break from the traditional [|school] day. They also allow students to apply and creatively express what they've learned. Role playing works especially well for complex concepts such as government systems or science processes. For example, role playing with mitosis is an effective assessment, as is demonstrating a variety of advertising techniques. By taking a process or system and building a play around it, students can transform what they've learned in a [|fashion] that helps further the understanding of the audience of students.

Concept Map Assessments
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 * Concept maps are an excellent assessment opportunity for students because they require them to make connections between the concepts they've learned. By creating a concept map or concept web with labeled spokes or arrows, students can explain many different process-type concepts. Concept map assessments can be used effectively in evaluating ecosystem units, weather units, life cycle units, and units on force and motion. A concept map is an ideal way to help students conceptualize information while making new connections and developing new understandings.

4. This is one of the best websites I have seen on Rubrics []

5. Benchmarks []

NAME: __DATE: ___

WRITING SAMPLE TITLE: _____ __Date of sample: ___ Total # of words: __

Look at your writing and fill in the chart.


 * What I like about this writing! || What I don’t like about this writing! ||
 * Punctuation:  examples of using periods, question marks, quotation marks, colons, semi-colons, exclamation marks || Adjectives: Here are some interesting words I used to describe nouns. ||
 * Capitals: examples of proper nouns used, dates || Adverbs: examples of words I used to describe verbs. ||