- There are a variety of assessment and grading considerations that can be used prior to, during, and at the end of instruction to determine student progress.
- Two types of assessment, formative and summative, can be used by teachers to make instructional decisions and determine student progress.
- Formative assessments consist of things teachers do to gather information during instruction so that appropriate changes (e.g., acceleration of content delivery, more review of content) can be made.
- Using formative assessment methods (i.e., ungraded methods) such as Curriculum-based measurement, error analysis, or portfolio reviews during instruction can alert the teacher when students may require review or more challenging content.
- Developing and using scoring rubrics at the beginning and throughout instruction assists students in monitoring their growth, understanding what criteria will be used to score their product, and figuring out the critical elements of the summative assessment measure (i.e., the graded information).
- Summative assessments are typically used to determine students' grade in a course, so the assessment and corresponding scoring criteria are provided to students at the onset of instruction.
- Inventorying students’ performance level prior to instruction is critical toward designing a responsive and challenging instructional environment.
- Several types of pretests, inventories, or observations of student performance can assist teachers in determining the information they know coming into a course, as well as determining where students who require accommodations or adaptations may need review or reteaching of skills and knowledge in order to be successful in a course.
- It is beneficial for teachers to examine student work to determine if patterns of errors are occurring, which have implications for instruction and feedback.
- Curriculum-based measurement is the process of taking some curriculum items and frequently assessing students regarding their performance on those items.
- Students who are proficient with acquiring and using new vocabulary can more fluidly and flexibly use and apply the vocabulary to content area tasks.
- Scoring rubrics are helpful for teachers and students when the rubrics contain detailed information related to how a project will be evaluated.
- Many teachers use homework assignments as a portion of course grades for students (Munk & Bursuck, 2001).
- Portfolio assessment is considered as a body of student work that can either show formative progress (as in multiple drafts of a research paper) or summative progress (as in the finalized research paper) of student work.
- When projects can take on varied formats, such as the use of multiple intelligences (e.g., illustration, written product, role-play, etc.) formats, the standard or scoring criteria must still be evident regardless of format. If a student requires an accommodation, the scoring criteria may be the same for that student as it is for other students. If a student requires an adaptation, the scoring criteria may be different in a minor way from that of other students in the class.
- There is no consensus on how a student with mild disabilities who receives accommodations or adaptations should be graded for the report card.
- Some school districts do have official policies and procedures in place for grading students who receive accommodations and adaptations.
- Teachers find it very helpful if their school district provides explicit guidance on how to indicate this on report cards, yet most school districts may decline to have an explicit policy on how to record such information on report cards.
- The extent to which teachers can explicitly convey course content, assignments, scoring criteria, and the way in which grades are determined becomes essential for students with mild disabilities who benefit from unambiguous guidance.
- Teachers who involve students in the responsibility and accountability for their assignments’ development and scoring can be building into their instruction an excellent way to share the teaching and learning tasks with students.
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