The Ins and Outs of Assessment

The Ins and Outs of Assessment What is an Assessment? As I ask myself this question, memories from my educational experience pass through my mind. I am forced to recall many tests, quizzes and fear that have embedded my mind with a horrific sense of anxiety. The fear, I believe, is the cause of the thought that I may not excel in the lesson that I had been taught. Then I ask myself, is that what an assessment was meant to accomplish? Through my readings, I have learned that an assessment is an educational process that requires documentation of knowledge that a student has received from a lesson. The documentation of the assessment can be based on the individual student or the class as a whole. Assessments are a collection of data in order to improve upon the educational development of a learner. Assessments also help improve the learning standards and benchmarks within the classroom. This practice will allow me, as a teacher, to improve my teaching ability and evolve as a better educator. I have also learned, through my readings, what an assessment is not. An assessment is not an end goal that determines a student’s educational worth in a subject area. Assessments are not the only data that is used in evaluating the progress of a student in a particular program of study. The process of assessing students’ progress is only useless when the evaluation is done poorly. If this practice does not reflect goals and values of particular disciplines, the assessment should be reevaluated. There are two main categories of assessment: summative and formative. Summative assessments are used to evaluate how effective an instructional program has been to student. This assessment is typically given at the end of a particular lesson, unit or