All of the curriculum courses offered within the Elementary Education program include some aspect of assessment, such as pre-assessment, rubrics, formative assessment, and summative assessments. William and Mary education students learn how to create and select appropriate tools for assessment. They work to evaluate student learning throughout the learning process, and they value the feedback that the assessments provide on student understanding. The Education 340: Assessment of Learning course focused specifically on how to use assessment in the classroom. This course helped develop my abilities to both create and select appropriate assessment tools. I learned to write questions in a clear and concise manner to ensure validity and reliability. The final project of the course involved creating a test and analyzing the test to ensure that learning objectives were tested in a valid manner. My test focused on plants and incorporated a variety of question types including, matching, fill in the blank, and multiple choice questions.

The objectives and materials of a lesson directly impact how a teacher should assess the student. From weekly spelling tests, timed math tests, daily journal entries, and weekly reading comprehension quizzes, to end of the unit math tests and science tests, I have worked to create and implement assessments in the classroom. One of the formal assessment tools that I learned to administer during my Language Arts and Reading Curriculum and Instruction course was the Reading Inventory for the Classroom. This formal assessment tool was used with a fourth grade student. It was used to gauge both oral reading skills and comprehension skills. The test was administered one on one, and required a lot of time to work individually with the student. The test continued until the student frustrated out at comprehending the story.

One thing that goes along with assessment is interpreting and analyzing the results in order to make instructional decisions.  One particular assessment that involved interpretation was the Spelling Inventory.  I used this formal assessment method with the student who I tutored in reading.  The test was used to determine the student’s phonics and spelling abilities.  Based on the student’s assessment, he was found to be in the Letter Name-Alphabetic Stage and the Early Within Word Pattern Stage.  With this information, I created a board game activity that focused on teaching r blends.  The student drew a card that had either a dr, gr, or tr on it.  Then he moved his playing piece to the correct corresponding picture on the board.  After this lesson, my student was able to correctly write words with the r blends.