Assessment For Learning

This should take place day to day throughout the school year; it allows teachers to modify their lessons and adapt their learning and teaching methods based on student needs. Some examples I used on my practicum include surveys, informal observations (including daily review questions), quizzes, activities, labs, and exit slips. Two forms of assessment for learning that I found particularly effective were sectional quizzes and daily journal entries.

The sectional quizzes were provided to my science 10 students after each section in the textbook. They were mostly all multiple choice (I included short answer questions every now and then for a wider range of assessment). Below is an example of a quiz I provided for section 1.1 in chapter 1 of the BC Science 10 textbook. These quizzes were almost always marked and returned to the students by next class. The quizzes informed me whether or not the class was ready to move on to the next section or if further instruction was still required on a few key ideas from the last section. They also informed the students themselves whether or not they’re ready for the questions on the provincial exam that covered that section given that I drew many of the questions from previous provincial exams.

The daily journal entries provided me with immediate feedback on the lesson; they were used as exit slips and done individually. Based on their entries I adjusted the next day’s lesson accordingly. They were given both verbal and written feedback on their entries. Some of their entries included writing:

• PMI’s: Students were to write two things about my lesson that were a plus, two things that were a minus, and two things that were interesting.
• NOC’s: Students were to write two new things they learned, two things they already knew, and two things they were curious about.
• Practice Questions: Students were to answer questions that related to that day’s lesson.

Occasionally the journal entries were a little more interactive. For example, for their lesson on symbiotic interactions the journal entry was to identify the different types of symbiotic interactions in a variety of Finding Nemo clips such as the one below.