Assessment can be defined as the process of gathering data to better determine the strengths and weaknesses points of students learning. It is tool that teachers use to evaluate, measure, and document their students’ learning progress and educational needs. There are three types of assessment, which are diagnostic, formative and summative. However, Assessments are very important because they provide valuable information on the suitability of the covered material and the time of their coverage (Couros, 2018). In this page, I will provide a sample of each type of assessments that I applied during the period of my teaching practice.
1.Diagnostic assessment
Sherman (2017) explained that the diagnostic assessment is a pretest, which is conducted at the beginning of the lesson or unit to determine and measure students' prior knowledge, skills and interest. I implemented many diagnostic assessments during my teaching practices. Some of these assessments were worksheets, learning games and oral questions. Diagnostic assessment is essential because teachers before start teaching students, it is important to know their skills and prior knowledge. Diagnostic assessments gave me information about students' strengths and weaknesses, hence I was able to determine what preconditions that student need to master the content of my lessons. Additionally, they enable me as a teacher to plan remedial and enriched content or activities that enhanced students comprehension skills and leaded them towards effective learning and eventually I achieved my learning objectives.
Reflection
In semester eight, where I practiced my teaching online, I had a lesson about the history of films. Thus, in the pre-stage, I presented a short clip of Charlie Chaplin to introduce the topic of the lesson. The idea of presenting this video was to allow students to guess the topic and assess their prior knowledge about the history of films. Then, I provided the link of my Padlet wall that I created, where students had to brainstorm their ideas about what they have watched and share it in the Padlet wall. Additionally, the wall consisted of three questions as a guide for students to notice the difference between todays and past films. However, this assessment made me aware of students limited knowledge about the history of films. It helped me to determine the areas that I needed to focus on and explain it deeper. Additionally, it allowed me to engage students, students loved and asked me to implement it with them again. I believe this was because students had the opportunity to share their ideas and discuss about them together.
Diagnostic assessment sample and reflection
Other diagnostic assessments samples that I implemented in my teaching practices
I applied this assessment to assess students prior knowledge of films types meaning. Students needed to match each film type with its picture.
I applied this assessment to assess students prior knowledge about football game vocabulary. Students needed to give any football concept from the pictures
2.Formative assessment
Moreover, the formative assessment is students learning evaluation after each new concept or idea used to estimate students’ achievement level in order by interpreting their performance and sharing the results with them (Zook, 2017). I believe that implementing formative assessments during my teaching practices was necessary as well because it gave the ability to assess students learning process. In addition, the students were provided with evidence of their progress to adjust their own learning actively. Moreover, formative assessments gave me the opportunity of providing constant feedback to my students. This allowed the students to be part of the learning environment and develop their self-assessment strategies that helped them to understand their own thought process.
Reflection
In my last online teaching practice, I taught a lesson, which was "What makes a good film?". My learning objectives were to recognize the new vocabulary words to and to listen to a conversation describing and recommending a film and identify specific information. Firstly, I allowed the students to listen to the audio, which was conversation between two girls describing and recommending a film twice. Then, I applied an activity as a formative assessment provided in the textbook to check students understanding of the audio. The activity was a summary of the audio in which students needed to select the correct words of the conversation. This activity allowed to ensure achieving my second learning objectives because the majority of students were able to perform it correctly. However, I discussed the answers with them in which they had the opportunity to know their mistakes and correct them.
Formative assessment sample and reflection
Other formative assessments samples that I implemented in my teaching practices
I applied this assessment to check students understanding of the present perfect tense. Students needed to complete the sentences using the past participle of verbs.
I applied this assessment to check students understanding of the vocabulary that I explained for them. Students needed to fill the blanks with the correct words.
3.Summative assessment
Moreover, the summative assessment should be used at the end of the lesson, unit or course to measure students' comprehension of the content at the end of this lesson, unit or course (Khan, 2019).The summative assessments that I applied in my teaching practices served as a guide for me to improve my teaching methods. They helped me to improve my planning for learning strategies as well because the data that was collected using summative assessments allowed me to measure each students' performance, needs and progress. Thus, I had the opportunity to apply the appropriate strategies to improve their performance. I used to implement my summative assessments with students as an individual task at the end of my lessons. They helped my to know if I have achieved my learning objectives or not. Furthermore, I used various summative assessments such as learning games worksheets and they were effective. I believe this was because they consisted of questions that supported students interest and learning styles.
Reflection
In semester eight, I prepared two lessons to review the vocabulary of unit three and four. I needed to motivate students to learn and activate their memory to remember all of the vocabularies that they have learned in unit three and four. Therefore, I created two online learning games using Kahoot and Quizizz websites. Mongillo (2010) clarified that play has a crucial role on improving students linguistically, cognitively and socially. However, both games consisted of various questions such as multiple choices, fill the gaps, true and false. Additionally, they included pictures, videos, reading, writing and hands movement to support all learning styles. Students played with enthusiasm. They were fully engaged and the majority of them were able to perform the questions correctly. I believe this was because as what Piaget stated that students through playing use their brains effectively to comprehend and apply what they learned efficiency (Nordquist, 2018).
Summative assessment samples and reflection
Other summative assessments samples that I implemented in my teaching practices
I implemented this assessment to ensure that students comprehended story elements. Students needed to write the elements of the story they read during the lesson.
I implemented this assessment to ensure that students comprehended the use of "used to" "be used to". Students needed to complete the sentences using correct form of "used to" "be used to".
