Assessments!!

Assessing the student is a very important process of determines the level of student learning, but also allows the student evaluate themselves.  Often students do not realize the level to which the teacher expect them to learn till they have been assessed.  Hence I feel student's must be assessed on a daily basis to answer the following questions:

1. What did the student learn today?
2. What adjustments need to be made after the assessment?

Formative assessments are those that are conducted daily.  These are the short 'check point' assessments that aren't necessarily used in determining a grade, but will let both the student and teacher know if the learning objective for the day was met.  This can be done with homework problems, tickets out the door, quizzes or even simple teacher monitoring of work.  Based on these assessments the teacher can adjust their lessons to either go back to reteach or even speed up the pace if material is being picked up quickly.  While the student can make appropriate adjustments for upcoming formative assessments.

Summative assessments are used to assess the accumulation of days at the end of a unit or set period of time.  I feel common assessments allow teachers of the same subject to compare data to allow immediate feedback on lesson design and student needs.  These assessment should be created by the teachers in which have taught the material.  Ideally the test would be written prior to unit design and lessons are designed to match the rigor of the assessment.  The assessment needs to directly reflect the standards in which the students are expected to master.