Teachers are responsible for a student's productivity and growth. They should learn how to assess the student’s performance in their curriculum proactively. So, one can do this by actively practicing the best student assessments.
As per the definition, assessment is gathering how well a student can comprehend and understand knowledge by going through their responses on tests & quizzes. These help teachers to get a profound understanding of how well students have understood the academic knowledge dispensed.
However, the assessments should be engaging for the students. Teachers are looking for distinct ways to understand which mindful practice should apply to assess performance.
Student assessments are usually grade-based and can include exams, projects, and standardized tests. There are many people involved in student development, like teachers, parents, and school-level leaders.
Innovate the assessments
The common feedback you usually give to the students is through grades. But, these practices are unable to identify the strengths and weaknesses of students. Teachers can use quizzing techniques to elaborate their knowledge to shift the approach from grades.
Make an Analysis
Analysis assessments help know the student's understanding of the lesson and how students are performing in their classes. Teachers should ask the questions, such as,
How will the assessment impact the understanding of peers?
How would this question be helpful to understand the topic?
Can I use this assessment to improve learning?
Stimulate feedbacks among them
Feedbacks are the review of their assessments, and sometimes it can be a hard pill to swallow. All students feel some pressure getting the results, which can make them uncomfortable. Therefore, a positive relationship between both teacher and student is necessary to give them productive feedback. In addition, it also needs trust and understanding in both parties to drive the growth of student assessment.
Formative assessments
Formative assessments refer to a different activity used in peer's progress during the curriculum. These will help teachers to identify the concepts that students are having difficulty in understanding.
Formative assessments help in tracking how the student knowledge can progress in your classroom in real-time. Some techniques of formative assessments are:
Types of assessments include:
- Group projects
- Class discussions
- Progress reports
- Quizzes
Online classroom tools can help formative assessments for students. It helps in introducing the students and helps them reduce their anxiety with online tools.
Summative assessment
These assessments are evaluated at the end of the course by comparing peer performance to some standard or benchmark. Some examples of summary assessments are the final exams or midterm exams.
These assessments measure the progress of students in terms of grades. But, these grades can be stressful sometimes to both students and teachers. These grades only reflect in the academic report, not test their practical knowledge.
However, though it’s a grading assessment, it can be made engaging and creative for students. As teachers, we can deviate the mediocre tests like,
Types of assessments include:
- arrange a short play of lesson
- create a short video
- recording a podcast.
Things to keep in mind: Make the brief and instructions of play clear and informative.
Responsiveness in assessment
The responsiveness of teachers is an integral part of the assessment of students. These will analyze how they demonstrate their learning. Some students excel in oral explanations, while some are great in creating visual representations; others excel in writing. To learn what methods students are great in, we need to be flexible and responsive to their strengths. These can be achieved through:
- Articles of newspapers
- PowerPoint presentation
- Live lecture from experts
Assessments should be continuous processes, not one-time
Assessments contain the power of analyzing the performance of students. But if it is a one-shot assessment, it will lack the true potential of students. So, it needs a series of assessments to monitor the progress of a student's performance. So, instead of one final exam, there should be a series of small tests of quizzes, reports, or projects.
Out of the box assessments
These assessments are carried in terms of tests that use comparison with their group of peers. These are based on some standards adjusted for age and demographics.
Unlike the assessments, students competing against themselves only, these out-of-box assessments will help compare the students from all walks of talent in their age.
Types of assessments include:
- Physical assessments
- National Quiz competition
- IQ tests
Standardized college assessments
Standardized assessments are competitive exams like SAT, GRE in which students are evaluated globally. Based on these exam scores, the students are enrolled in colleges. These exams analyze the technical, analytical, and complex knowledge of students. Some key features it measures like,
Types of assessments include:
- Physical development
- Language ability
- College admission decisions
- Grade readiness
Assessments in Debates
Unlike formative & summative assessments, introducing the debates in class will encourage the engagement of students. For example, in social science, we can ask the views of the role model in the lesson and what they think about it?
A debate can involve students in researching a controversial topic of the subject. These will drive the series of arguments and explanations of the topics. The debate can be organized in different ways like,
- Ask students to prepare the information about the topic
- Invite one or two teachers to join the debate teams
- Arrange the questionnaire sessions for the students
This assessment will evaluate the performance that can be added to their academic records. The debate assessments will improve the preparation and understanding of the topic.
Final Thoughts
Student assessment is the continuous learning process in which students are evaluated in analytical and technical terms. Despite mediocre pen and paper examinations, there are different online assessments. These consist of practical modules and digital classrooms that help show educational videos, PPTs, and documents.
Online teaching applications are more encouraged nowadays, which uses types of assessments to drive the digital classroom. There is a growing number of professionals that are teaching on these platforms. These educators help students to understand their curriculum concepts. Their assessments consist of personalized learning to tailor lessons.
With Teachmint Integrated School Platform, schools can easily automate almost all the strenuous tasks that otherwise were laborious and time-taking. The LMS portal, performance management, attendance management system, and other valuable features make Teachmint one of the best solutions for educational institutions.
