Phases of Assessment

Classroom assessment requires an ongoing process to determine if students have learned the concepts and skills that have been presented in class. In order to get the whole picture of a student’s learning, you should include three phases of assessment during the course of a year or semester: pre-assessment, ongoing assessment, and final assessment. In this article we will examine each of these phases of assessment to determine what it is, what it is used for, and what types of assessments are included in each phase.

Phase One: Pre-Assessment

Pre-assessment is a systematic assessment that occurs at the beginning of a school year or when starting a new unit of instruction to determine your students’ level of knowledge or skill about the subject. Pre-assessment activities may include tests or they may simply be conversations with your students. Pre-assessment can even occur before a student begins the school year, such as the preschool screening used with students entering kindergarten.

Pre-assessment can be used in various ways. One way is as a diagnostic tool to help determine at what level a particular student is functioning. You can also use pre-assessment to help you make decisions about what kinds of instructional activities are appropriate for the students you have in a particular class. It is good to determine early in the year what skills and knowledge students have so that you can begin your instruction at an appropriate level. If students have the prerequisite skills and knowledge for the instruction you have planned, a brief review may be all that is needed. However, if prerequisite skills and knowledge are missing or weak, reteaching may be necessary. You can also use pre-assessment to help you determine your instructional goals for a particular unit. Use the pre-assessment checklist to get the information you need.

There are different techniques you can use to conduct a pre-assessment. You can look at your students’ past achievements by talking with teachers who have had them in previous years or by reviewing students’ cumulative folders. You can use a pretest on the information you plan to cover in a given unit or have students self-report what they know. Some commercially prepared instructional materials include two forms for each test. One form of the test can be used as a pre-assessment.

Of course, simply observing or conversing with your students can give you important information, particularly in relation to their interests, work habits, and personality characteristics. This information can be valuable in

motivating students and making your instruction more meaningful to them.

Phase Two: Ongoing Assessment

Once you have completed a pre-assessment and have a clear idea where your students are in terms of abilities, knowledge, and skills, you can begin instruction. At this point, you will begin to use ongoing assessments to determine how your students are doing.

Ongoing assessment is sometimes known as formative assessment or progress monitoring. It is designed to

provide information during the teaching and learning process and to help you analyze, based on the data, how you are doing as a teacher and how your students are doing as learners. Guskey (2003) tells us that, “to become an integral part of the instructional process, assessment cannot be a one-shot, do-or-die experience for students.

Instead, assessments must be part of an ongoing effort to help students learn. And if teachers follow assessments with helpful corrective instruction, then students should have a second chance to demonstrate their new level of competence and understanding” .

There are several different uses for ongoing assessment, including

1. to provide feedback to students on their learning

2. to establish whether students have achieved mastery of skills or whether further instruction is necessary

3. to serve as a basis for flexible grouping of students

4. to give you information about how teaching strategies are working with your students so that you can adjust your instruction, if  needed.

Ongoing assessment encompasses a wide variety of information-gathering techniques. You are conducting ongoing assessment when you give your students daily or weekly quizzes and when you systematically observe your students’ performance on various tasks. In this section you will read more about two specific types of ongoing assessment: self-assessment and curriculum-based measurement. These two types of assessment are used to provide you and your students with continuous feedback about how well they are learning.

Phase Three: Final Assessment

After you have taught your unit of study or course, it is important to conduct a final, or “summative,” assessment, even if you have been using ongoing assessment throughout the unit.

A final assessment is a test or measure that you give at the end of a unit of study, a semester, or the school year to be certain students have learned the content. It usually covers a broad amount of information and measures a sample of all of the objectives in the unit or course. Most of us are familiar with this type of evaluation—it’s an end-of-chapter test, a unit test, or a midterm or final exam.

The primary purpose of final assessment is to find out if your students have met the instructional goals. Final assessments may also be used for 

l. Assigning final grades

2.Certifying student achievement

3.Serving as a basis for promotion

4.Sharing information about student progress with parents or teachers.

Written tests, including teacher-made exams and the end-of-chapter tests included with your textbooks, are forms of final assessment. You may also conduct final assessment using performance assessments, such as laboratory experiments, oral reports, or performances. Student projects that result in themes, drawings, or research reports can also be used to assess whether your instructional goals have been met.

Your main concern with final assessment is finding out how well your students have mastered the content. Ask yourself the questions in the checklist when conducting a final assessment.

Each phase of assessment—pre-assessment, ongoing assessment, and final assessment—is useful at specific times and for specific purposes. As a whole, the three phases can tell you three things: what students know about a topic before instruction begins; the progress your students are making during the course or unit of study in terms of understanding the concepts or learning the skills you are presenting; and how much progress the students have made by the end of the course or unit of study. The information box presents a comparison of the three types of assessment.

Effective assessment of student learning can be a time-consuming part of a teacher’s responsibilities. However, used properly, it can provide numerous benefits to you and your students.

Benefits for Teachers

1. Assessment that is appropriately administered and analyzed gives you the information you need to know if the content or pace of  instruction is appropriate. Your students’ learning will improve when you make needed adjustments to the content and pace of  instruction based on what the students are learning.

2.l Assessment helps you monitor how much your students are learning throughout the course or year. If you wait until the end to assess student learning, you lose the opportunity to reteach the content they did not understand, and students can be left with gaps in their understanding.

3. If you vary the activities or methods you use, assessment can provide information about whether a particular method was successful. In this way, you can determine which teaching methods are most successful with each group of students.

The primary purpose of assessment is to improve both teaching and learning. Even the simplest classroom assessments should help you gain information about how well your students are moving toward mastery of the Sunshine State Standards. By frequently assessing your students’ learning, you will be able to adjust the content, pace, and method of delivery of your instruction and assure your students’ success.