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What's the assessment and why it is used?
Interim Assessments are given to students are at pre-determined intervals. The purpose of these assessments is to determine student achievement on standards. They are often used to identify patterns of both strengths and weaknesses in learning for groups of students so that teachers can re-teach critical content and skills. Interim assessments can be given electronically and scored automatically, or with paper and pen, and scored by teachers.

Interim assessment will help the teachers to answer these questions: . 1. What do we want to learn from this assessment?
2. Who will use the information gathered from this assessment?
3. What action steps will be taken as a result of this assessment?
4. What professional development or support structures should be in place to ensure the action
steps are taken and are successful?
5. How will student learning improve as a result of using this interim assessment system and will
it improve more than if the assessment system was not used?

Examples

A Chapter test;

A Unit Test

An Extended essay;

A project scored with a rubric.

Sources
Eleducation.org (u.d.) Using Data: Interim Assessments https://eleducation.org/resources/using-data-interim-assessments
Edglossory.org (u.d.) Interim Assessment https://www.edglossary.org/interim-assessment/

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Understanding the Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments

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What's the assessment and why it is used?
According to Popham (2011), formative assessment is a process that "involves the gathering and analysis of assessment-elicited evidence for the purpose of
determining when and how to adjust instructional activities or learning tactics in order to achieve learning goals" (p. 14). This purpose is achieved through two types of formative assessment—pre-assessment and ongoing assessment. Since we talked about Pre-assessment already, here we are focusing on Ongoing Assessment.
Ongoing assessment is what most people think of when they think of formative assessment. Ongoing assessment occurs at various intervals throughout the learning process. Its purpose is to find out the degree to which students are "with" the teacher in terms of meeting learning goals, so classroom content, process, and
products can be adjusted to better facilitate student growth. Ongoing assessment for interest and learning profile is also possible, if that information has not previously
been collected or if the teacher has a new idea for incorporating these data into unit activities.

Examples

Portfolios

Group projects

Progress reports

Class discussions

Entry and exit tickets

Short, regular quizzes

Virtual classroom tools like Kahoot or Quizziz

Sources
Popham, W. J. (2011). Transformative Assessment in Action: An Inside Look at
Applying the Process. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Edulastic.com (u.d.) Different Types of Assessment and What You Need to Know About Them https://edulastic.com/blog/types-of-assessment/

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Seven Strategies for Using Formative Assessments in Online Learning

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(Jinny Lee)

What is it?
The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value.

Why do we use it?

Summative assessments measure student progress as an assessment of learning and provide data for you, school leaders and district leaders.
They're cost-efficient and valuable when it comes to communicating student progress, but they don’t always give clear feedback on the learning process and can foster a “teach to the test” mindset if you’re not careful.

Plus, they’re stressful for teachers. One Harvard survey found 60% of teachers said “preparing students to pass mandated standardized tests” “dictates most of” or “substantially affects” their teaching.

Sound familiar?
But just because it’s a summative assessment, doesn’t mean it can’t be engaging for students and useful for your teaching. Try creating assessments that deviate from the standard multiple-choice test, like:

Recording a podcast

Writing a script for a short play

Producing an independent study project

No matter what type of summative assessment you give your students, keep some best practices in mind:

Keep it real-world relevant where you can

Make questions clear and instructions easy to follow

Give a rubric so students know what’s expected of them

Create your final test after, not before, teaching the lesson

Try blind grading: don’t look at the name on the assignment before you mark it

examples:

End-of-term or midterm exams.

Cumulative work over an extended period such as a final project or creative portfolio.

End-of-unit or chapter tests.

Standardised tests that demonstrate school accountability are used for pupil admissions; SATs, GCSEs and A-Levels.

Sorces:
https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/types-of-assessment/#summative

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What is it?
Performance based assessments are opportunities for students to show what they learned rather than tell. Students perform a task rather than answer questions. Like a boss at work giving their employee a challenging task, these assessments prepare students for the kinds of challenges that allow students to show off their skills and grow as problem solvers. Teachers describe a task for students and set them off to make it happen.

Why do we use it?
We use performance assessments because they are active and are sometimes better indicators of student progress than regular tests. Accomplishing a task can show teachers what students learned and shows students what they're capable of.

Examples
Examples include: oral presentations, performed dramas, projects where students design and make something, open ended questions, portfolios.

Sources
Performance Assessment. Archived: PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT. (n.d.). https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/perfasse.html.

What is Performance Assessment. Archived: Education Week Performance Assessment. https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/perfasse.html.  24 June 2021.

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What is it?
Diagnostic assessments are given to learn where students levels are at before teaching them the content. Every student is on a different level and these assessments show specifically what students strengths and weaknesses are in the content area. These will basically always occur at the beginning of a unit, not the end.

Why do we use it?
These assessments help the teacher first of all, which leads to helping the student. The information attained through these assessments leads the teacher to change the content, lessons, and goals of their classes to fit student needs. This means students are getting new information they don't know, or are going to fully understand a topic that they only knew a little bit about before.

Examples
These are usually multiple choice tests but can vary in form. They can be math problems, such as division tests before teaching about fractions, or multiplication tests before teaching about area. For literacy they could be read out loud tests with a timer, or for a science test you could do a bell ringer multiple choice test to see what students know and don't know about space. These are a couple examples that all achieve the same goal, showing students strengths and what tools they are lacking.

Sources
Example Diagnostic Tools | National Center on Intensive Intervention. https://intensiveintervention.org/intensive-intervention/diagnostic-data/example-diagnostic-tools. 26 June 2021.

Edulastic. “What is a Diagnostic Assessment? Here’s everything you need to know.” Edulastic Blog, 16 August 2018. https://edulastic.com/blog/diagnostic-assessment. 26 June 2021.

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Diagnostic Assessment: Examples & Overview

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What's the assessment and why it is used?
Assessment of learning is the snapshot in time that lets the teacher, students and their parents know how well each student has completed the learning tasks and activities. It provides information about student achievement. While it provides useful reporting information, it often has little effect on learning. Most of time, summative assessments are assessments of learning.

The purposes of using assessment of learning are:

Checks what has been learned to date;

Collecting the information for those not directly involved in daily learning and teaching (school administration, parents, school board ..) in addition to teachers and students;

Help to develop a periodic report by putting data into a single number, score or mark as part of a formal report.

To show an achievement grade.

Compares the student's learning either with other students' learning or the standard for a grade level.

Examples

Most benchmark examples used by a state or district are typical assessments of learning. Such as:

PARCC

AIR

FSA Assessment

MAAP

STAAR Test

ACT Aspire

Sources
Jana Bennett (December 8, 2017)

Assessment FOR Learning vs. Assessment OF Learning

https://www.pearsonassessments.com/professional-assessments/blog-webinars/blog/2017/12/assessment-for-learning-vs--assessment-of-learning.html
Jan Moody (January 6, 2020)

What is a Benchmark Exam?

https://edulastic.com/blog/benchmark-exam/

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What is it?
Assessment as learning develops and supports students' metacognitive skills. This form of assessment is crucial in helping students become lifelong learners. As students engage in peer and self-assessment, they learn to make sense of information, relate it to prior knowledge and use it for new learning. Students develop a sense of ownership and efficacy when they use teacher, peer and self-assessment feedback to make adjustments, improvements and changes to what they understand.

Why do we use it?
Assessment as learning helps students to rethink and reflect their learning process at the end of a learning stage like a unit or topic. It allows students to become their own assessors so they can monitor their own learning, ask questions and use a range of strategies to decide what they know and can do, and how to use assessment information for new learning.

Assessment of learning can:

encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning

requires students to ask questions about their learning

involves teachers and students creating learning goals to encourage growth and development

provides ways for students to use formal and informal feedback and self-assessment to help them understand the next steps in learning

encourages peer assessment, self-assessment and reflection.

Examples

Portfolios,

Peer reviews,

Self-assessments,

End of unit surveys,

Project-based learning.

Sources
Curriculum.gov.mt (u.d.) Assessment of, for and as Learning
https://curriculum.gov.mt/en/Assessment/Assessment-of-Learning/Documents/assessment_of_for_as_learning.pdf
Kampen, M. (2020, June 23). The 6 Types of Assessment [+ How to Use Them]. Prodigy Education. https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/types-of-assessment/