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      CHAPTER 2

      Using Assessments

      Assessment is a feedback mechanism for both students and teachers. Assessments should provide students with information about how to advance their understanding of content and teachers with information about how to help students do so.

      The goal of this design area is for students to understand how test scores and grades relate to their status on the progression of knowledge they are expected to master. Teachers are able to meet that goal by answering the question, How will I design and administer assessments that help students understand how their test scores and grades are related to their status on the progression of knowledge they are expected to master? The two elements and associated strategies in this chapter help the teacher do just that.

Element 4: Using Informal Assessments of the Whole Class

      An effective educator uses informal assessments to get a general sense of how the class is doing regarding a specific topic. Research shows that classroom assessments should be frequent and formative in nature, encourage students to improve, and give students a clear picture of their progress on learning goals (Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, Kulik, & Morgan, 1991; Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, & Kulik, 1991; Black & Wiliam, 1998; Crooks, 1988; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1986; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996; Natriello, 1987). Teachers should use assessment data to provide students with evidence that effort on their part results in higher scores (Marzano, 2006). There are four strategies within this element.

      1. Confidence rating techniques

      2. Voting techniques

      3. Response boards

      4. Unrecorded assessments

      The following sections will explore each strategy to provide you with guidelines to effectively implement this element. Read through each before creating a plan for your classroom. Teachers may use the strategies individually or in combination. Remember, these are not merely activities to be checked off; they are methods of creating a practice that combines your art with the science of using informal assessments of the whole class. Reflect on your use of each strategy by filling out the “Strategy Reflection Log” on page 331.

       Confidence Rating Techniques

      In this strategy, the students rate how confident they are in their understanding of a topic in the moment with direct input. The teacher uses this immediate feedback to determine what areas of the content are causing students difficulty. Following are a few ways students can rate their confidence quickly and easily.

      • Hand signals: Hand signals provide an effective means for determining students’ confidence because they require little preparation. The teacher gives the class quick instruction on predetermined hand signals before a lesson begins. Students might give a thumbs-up to indicate confidence with the material, a thumbs-down to indicate lack of confidence, or a thumbs-sideways to indicate uncertainty.

      • Polling technology: Polling technology (clickers or smartphone apps) can be a fun and versatile means for students to rate their confidence with the material. Websites such as Poll Everywhere (www.polleverywhere.com) allow the teacher to set up confidence rating questions and then ask students to answer them using the text function of their cell phones or by visiting a specific link and voting online.

      • Color-coded cards: Color-coded cards can be as simple as slips of colored construction paper. To use this strategy, a teacher can provide students with a system of different colored cards and have students keep them in a single stack on their desks. For example, a green card could indicate that students are confident with the material, a yellow card could indicate uncertainty, and a red card could indicate that they want the teacher to stop and re-explain a difficult point. During the lesson, students place the colored card that corresponds to their level of confidence with the material on top of the stack.

       Voting Techniques

      The teacher provides specific questions or prompts and asks students to vote on answers. Typically, such questions have a true-or-false or multiple-choice format. Teachers can use this to spur class discussion or simply gauge classwide competence with the content. Students can vote using confidence rating techniques or other methods such as the following.

      • Use tokens: Using tokens to indicate answers can be an especially fun way for K–5 students to vote in the classroom. To use tokens, set up several cans or jars and provide students with a token (a coin or other small object) to place in the containers. Label each container with a different possible answer to a question. Ask students to deposit their tokens one by one, or ask the whole class to deposit their tokens at the same time. When all the tokens have been deposited, the teacher can then ask students to indicate which container they think has acquired the most votes.

      • Vote

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