Introduction

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 Assessments provide teachers with the ability to evaluate their own progress as the primary instructor of the classroom. In order for student achievement to not be measured from a stand alone summative assessment or high-stakes test performance, teachers incorporate opportunities to evaluate growth towards specific academic goals throughout the year. There are a variety of diagnostic and formative assessments tools that effective teachers use to measure student growth and engage students in the assessment process. Moreover, engaging students in assessments offers teachers the ability to monitor learner progress not only through their lens, but also provides students with the opportunity to make sense of their progress and offer context on the learning experience. Without learner involvement, assessments operate as background music to the production that is occurring in the classroom. As students and teachers become more aware of how assessments reflect the effective instruction and engagement in a classroom, students strengthen their metacognition, critical thinking, and self-assessment skills, which are all anchors of college and career readiness. 

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In my classroom, assessments are forms of communication between me, my students, and the content skills taught. Forms of assessments occur on a fluid yet consistent basis. Since Maryland has adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), I utilize standard-based diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments to evaluate student performance throughout the course. Through the use of assessments, I focus on how to best introduce and familiarize foundational content skills through instruction and assessments that will be critical not only for students' high-stakes testing performance, but also high school, college, and career readiness. Since the majority of my students are reading and writing at least 2 years below grade level, assessments allow me to address gaps in knowledge and differentiate instruction to tailor to student needs. By embedding multiple methods of assessments, such as informal formatives or culminating writing performance tasks, I am able to understand how students make sense of content knowledge and apply skills to explore new concepts and move towards standards mastery. 

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Since all assessments highlighted are administered to seventh and eighth grade students, the evidence reflects both grade-level student data and engagement. 

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Below, you can click each image to explore how I integrate multiple methods to engage, monitor, and guide decisions making on assessments:  

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