SUMMARIZE! Chapter 5!

 

 

 

 Chapter 5 

    Chapter 5 of our text delves into assessing student learning. The authors highlight the need to organize and detail different methods of assessments and evaluations to judge student learning. Teacher's conduct different kind of assessments. Some in the form of grades, others in the form of charting. Teachers record and then report data from student learning. Section 5 discusses how teacher's must ensure that assessments are both reliable and valid since these assessments are used to make decisions for student education. 

    The authors cite that to ensure an assessment is both reliable and valid depends greatly on the educator. First, the reliability  of the assessment lies partly in the quality of  the questions being asked, and that this evaluation be used frequently so it is familiar and students understand the process. Secondly,  validity of the assessment is predicated on whether or not the assessment is evaluating the content or learning that it was designed to evaluate. The author emphasize that just because an assessment is reliable does not mean that an assessment is a valid assessment of a student's abilities or knowledge.

    Section  6 outlines the key differences in formative and summative assessments. The difference being that a formative assessment is usually ongoing and informs instructional decisions and choices throughout a students learning progress. A summative assessment is meant to take a pulse on what a student has learned following instruction and represents an evaluation to determine if certain goals or objectives have been met. Summative can also take the form of state and national assessments.

Section 9 reminds teachers to carefully evaluate their tests to see common themes in students responses. If multiple students miss or answered a question incorrectly the teacher must evaluate if the wording of the question was confusing of that topic needs to be retaught. Teacher's must also teach test taking skills to further support student success. This chapter wraps up with some additional resources for teachers.