FIAE Chapter 3

This chapter had a lot of information about assessment to take in. I think the most important thing I learned from it was that there are countless different kinds of assessments meant to serve many different purposes. The three basic types of assessments (pre-, formative, and summative) were really helpful to learn about. I didn’t realize that assessment was something that necessarily took place in the midst of a lesson, but now that I have learned about it it makes a lot of sense. I think using tests results to determine what direction the content should go in is a really good idea, because it keeps the end goal in mind and makes sure that everything is driven towards a purpose. It is really easy to think of assessments as being the end of a teacher’s work for a particular unit, but the work never really ends, and tests and projects are meant to be another step along the way towards successful content mastery. Learning is a constantly evolving process and assessments need to work cooperatively with instruction to achieve that. I think it is also really important to make sure that assessments have real-world applications. One of the most irritating things about high school was when the material we were being tested on didn’t seem to have any real purpose. It made it seem like our time was being wasted, and that is something I really want to look out for when I am a teacher. The chapter’s guidelines for avoiding “fluff” assignments were really helpful for that. In order to keep content goal-oriented, it is important to always remember the end result envisioned by each particular assignment, and the same thing with assessments. Tests and other evalulative projects need to have just as much purpose as the work leading up to them.