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I like the basic idea of the five finger text, but with provisions. The idea of students self-regulating using this test is extremely appealing, and the simplicity of the parameters make it ideally suited for this task. I also like how it allows students to try books that are "above" their reading level, and can be a quick and simple confidence booster, and empower them try new books. If I were doing the counting while the student read aloud to me, I would probably use a more subtle method of counting mistakes, so as not to distract the student, or make them feel embarrassed or stupid about mistakes.

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You are about to begin the Assessment of Readers and Texts module.

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I've heard about formative assessments  before, but I only saw it as just another way of assessing a student rather than a way to inform what I need to do to adjust my instruction so that students are accomplishing the learning objectives.

As many of my peers have pointed out and as mentioned in the Assessment for ELL Youtube video, I would use Exit Slips at the end of my class gauge what students' learning experience. I've attached a sample of an exit slip at the end of the post.

One other form of assessment I could do is an CRI delivered through Google Form. I would deliver it at the beginning of a unit or just before students are about to start a new book in class to see if students' are in the instructional level to take on the reading assignment. If not, I will provide graphic organizers or vocabulary lists when the readings are assigned.

The final form of formative assessment I would do the Five Finger Rule mentioned in the Module by Dr. David O'Brien. While CRI can be done at the beginning of a unit or before a book is assigned, I would use the Five Finger Rule in the middle of a unit or a book as a quick way to assess if students are comprehending the text.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Exit-Ticket-Monkey-Emojis-3182868

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Before this week’s readings and videos, I hadn’t really heard much about formative assessments and what they do or what the exact goals were. As a student, it sounded a bit scary, like a test. However, now I understand that a formative assessment is different from summative assessments (post-learning). Something that stuck out to me the most was in the video about assessments for ELLs. I really appreciated what the teach said about how teachers must look at assessments “in a different way as not just a test at the end of a unit but all of those little things that you can put in throughout the day [and that] it’s really worth it because then you know where the students are, and where they need to go.”
One of the formative assessments I like is the use of an exit slip. By providing students with an opportunity to write down answers to the questions, not only can be incredibly helpful for a teacher in formative assessments, but writing can give more shy students opportunities to provide more information. Here is an example of an exit slip that I found:

https://www.theartofed.com/2017/01/27/use-exit-tickets/

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I agree with Sevensma and Schuhmacher (2017) that formative assessment in crucial in supporting literacy instruction. For teachers, it is tool to reach targeted learning outcomes through continuous modification and improvement. The notion of using digital tools for assessment is one that I will use it in my classroom. By reviewing videos made by students to highlight text features, I can engage students with technology. The assessment component allows me to formatively assess outside the classroom on my own time to identify gaps. I can then modify my instruction to address these gaps.

I would also use a polling or voting application such as Kahoot! I think that platforms such as these allow students to have a voice in space where they may otherwise be unwilling to share. In particular, I hope to spend time teaching in a civics classroom and I think that this tool would work well in that space.

Resources:
https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2017/03/03/digital-formative-assessments-in-literacy

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I really appreciated Rick Wormelli's emphasis on feedback. He clearly articulates that this feedback through formative assessment allows for differentiation in the classroom. I also liked his clarification that any summative assessment can be made into a formative assessment, thus prolonging and enriching the whole learning process.

While my feelings regarding technology in the classroom are mixed, the reality is that many of us will encounter students in districts/schools where devices are provided. These provide a vehicle for formative assessment and feedback.

One way to do this is with the website Pear Deck. This tool is interactive, useful, controlled, and limited in scope. This all enables it to be helpful without being distracting. It synthesizes a slideshow or presentation with tools for student engagement and direct feedback. Because the answers can be exported, teachers can rely on this past the session as well to keep track of data.

In addition to helping students gauge what their classmates might think or how the class as a whole sees certain questions, it enables the instructor to view specific answers and initiate follow-up with those students if needed.

This website digitizes many of the ideas found in the Classroom Experiment video:
It incorporates the idea of an exit ticket and the whiteboard sharing that we saw in the video. This also allows students to ask questions, operating like the traffic lights component of the video. The anonymity of the answers allows for students to share across the board (not just those who are called on) without shame, embarrassment, or shyness - this emulates the popsicle stick idea.

https://www.peardeck.com

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I really liked the videos assigned this week. What stood out to me was when the gentleman said that the mini-white boards were the greatest teaching innovation since the chalk board.  My favorite part is that they do not have internet access. My second favorite part is that it allows one to quickly evaluate if students are understanding the material.  As you could see in the class demonstrations from the video, there were some mixed results. Some of the students answered the questions, while others used their boards to draw funny pictures or write obscene things on them.  It can be overwhelming, in my opinion, to try to do this activity with 30+ students.  However, I would use a hybrid assessment activity, using the small group discussions from the video with the elementary school children and the white boards from the second video.  The idea of informal testing has grown on me a lot in the last few weeks.  When I entered this semester, I thought I would be one of those teachers that would assess with tests and let the results fall where they may and move on.  However, in many of these classes, I have been forced to reflect on efficacy. Does a certain way of testing really benefit the student? In short, it depends on the type of the test and the type of student.  For my ELL learners, I want to be able to interact with them in a way that involves less stress. To understand if they are grasping the concepts, having small groups where I ask questions allows me to see directly if they are benefiting from my instruction. I would meet with about five students for ten minutes of class and ask them a few basic questions which they would answer with their boards.  We would then as a small group discuss why a particular answer was wrong or right. If there are thirty students holding up whiteboards, people struggling are going to be lost, they may even be tempted to write whatever their neighbor put down.  With smaller groups, there will be far less concern with peer responses and we can cover more questions.
Here is a link to a video on small group instruction.

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Formative assessments are a great way to keep track of your students’ progress. One tool that I found in the Edutopia.com article “Fire Up Your Class with Interest Surveys” was Socrative. Socrative is a website and app that allows teachers to do many different assessment activities quickly, like quizzes, quick questions, and exit tickets, which are final activities that students must do before they can leave class. The quizzes can even be done in a race format if your students are motivated by competition. Teachers can watch their students answer in real time.

I’m interested in using Socrative because it looks like an assessment method that is easy for me to implement and easy for the students to use. It can be used to quickly check students comprehension with one question, or it can be for longer assessments, like the Content Reading Inventory. I don’t want to be grading comprehension quizzes by hand every day, so having the computer do it will save me a lot of time. Having real-time answers is also helpful because I’ll be able to quickly see which questions are the most difficult for students or if a particular student is doing poorly. I can then review the material immediately rather than having to wait until the next day. Plus, it saves paper!

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Login or sign up for free on Socrative - your assessment partner for real-time assessments and instant insights.

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One of the biggest things I gathered from these readings and videos (especially Rick Wormeli’s talk) was the importance of and need for more formative assessments, and that they should be cyclical and ongoing.

I liked a lot of the simple strategies that were detailed, like the “traffic lights” cups or cards and using mini whiteboards, and I think the latter could be done with 1-to-1 devices (and maybe even modified to be done with GoGuardian.com or Apple Classroom screen viewing or with Socratic, to eliminate any anxieties from publicly displaying answers).

But what resonated with me the most were the techniques discussed in the two “World Language Assessment” videos (https://bit.ly/2LjLkbq and https://bit.ly/2NWnLay). I think that I have already been starting to touch on some of these ideas in my CRI and VIPs, and designing some larger unit around a relevant and motivating theme would come naturally to me. For example, students could first do a cloze procedure for the article about France and Spain’s joint approach to refugees that I used for my CRI, then read the article and complete the CRI, which would be part of my initial formative assessment and which would inform my next steps in the instruction. The CRI would be similar to the Strategic Content Literacy Assessment, and I could also incorporate questions about “Interest and Attitude” and about “What’s Easy and What’s Hard.” All of this would constitute “Assessments FOR Learning,” as Alvermann et al. talk about in Chapter 5.

Throughout the unit, they could keep logs of self-selected vocabulary words and do semantic mapping or analysis grids -- both of which I mentioned in my VIPs and which are mentioned could be included later in a final portfolio to show their progress (an example of “Assessments AS Learning,” from Alvermann et al.).

As was mentioned in the “World Language Assessment” videos, students would know the endpoint (the goals and evaluation criteria) for an authentic/performance assessment at the end of the unit, but I would embed knowledge in the unit curriculum all along the way to help get them to that moment (which means backward design for me). They would be responsible for knowledge and would be required to do research for a final presentation or performance *with follow-up discussion*, or just to prepare questions and statements for a group discussion to cap off the unit, which I also mentioned in my CRI.

This would be very functionally relevant and authentic, and would meet goals of the Interpretive Mode (making sense of texts), the Interpersonal Mode (as they won’t know what their peers will say or ask in discussion and will need to respond and negotiate meaning on their feet), and the Presentational Mode (editing and rehearsing).

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"We're mindful of the language that they have and where do we need to provide support so that they are able to express what they know. What are the language components they need to learn to demonstrate that they understand the concepts." - Jessica Panfil, Principal of Claremont immersion School.

I really enjoyed the video "Assessments for ELLs" . They made osme really good points on trying to understand the clarity of their work. Such as seeing if the information they are trying to pass onto the children is getting across. Because those students were ELL, it is harder to try to get the information across to them. Being able find a way of getting the information across to them is a challenge, but ends with a happy ending.

I myself am a ELL student. Hearing and seeing what Samantha Kirch go through to try and get the message across to the student was amazing. Ms. Kirch showed great demonstration throughout the video using body movement to see if the students understood what she was teaching. Body movement is an great way to teach ESL students. Even if they don't understand much of the language, being able to see what the teacher demonstrate with her body can give off clues for students to attach the message together. Growing up, a part of my learning came through the body language of my teachers as well. Learning not only comes through the mouth of a teacher, but also the body movement as they express and teach. This style of teaching works really well in the early years of education.

One strategy I plan to use in the classroom to get the message across to my ELL students are incorporating body movement. Not only will I be using my body to move around the class and present the lessons. I would like to have my students move around in such a way that would fit and hit their learning target. Kinesthetic teaching and learning is one of the main key to ESL students learning target.

To top the lesson off, I would like to use some sort of exit ticket. To understand every students need and understanding. It is for them to get a chance to write down questions that they have or something they have understand in class. This is a possibility of doing so at the end of every week. Doing it everyday can be helpful, but also "annoying" to students.

This type of assessment doesn't always have to be an exit ticket. But it sure does have to be something about getting back to the students and checking with their understandings.

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One strategy that I plane to use in my class room is called the vocabulary knowledge scale. This formative assessment can be used either before or shortly after encountering vocabulary words and lets you know what the student knows, what they don't know, and how much of the vocab they are retaining.

The assessment is very strait forward. Students are presented with a list of vocab words either before they start a lesson or about halfway through a unit. The students are asked to determine if this is a word they have never seen before, a word they have seen before but don't know, a word they think they know, or a word that they defiantly know. For words that the student thinks they know or defiantly know, they should provide a brief definition as well as a sentence where they use the word correctly. A sample of what this layout  might look like is below.

I really like this assessment for a number of reasons. To start, you can use it right away to gauge what your students might already know. This will help you decide what to focus on vocab and content wise in class. This assessment also lets you see how a student has progressed since the beginning of a chapter and understand which words students may be struggling to understand. Finally, this is an easily adaptable assessment. You can alter the vocab list depending on the level of students you are teaching. This could also be helpful with ELL students not just with vocab, but with other English words that they might see or read in a lesson.

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One of the tools that I would use to assess literacy in the World Language classroom is https://edpuzzle.com.

This application allows the teacher to use a video (that he creates or one that already exists in platforms such as YouTube, Ted Talks, Vimeo, etc.) and easily add interactive elements that align with the goal of the lessons. The teacher can add his own audio (and replace the original one), crop the video to show only the portion/segment appropriate for the lesson, and also add quizzes (multiple choice and open ended questions).

I like this tool because it allows the teacher to use any kind of video and construct an assessment by adding different types of questions.

You can see a simple of an Edpuzzle activity with a video of a Spanish native speaker talking about clothing HERE:  https://edpuzzle.com/media/5b456398ff9af340ed746e22

This activity can be assigned in class (if you have devices for every student) or to be done at home.  It gives student the opportunity to listen/watch to the video several times so students who need more time or repetitions don't feel intimidated by limited time or number of repetitions.

I am also very interested in learning more about

Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs) mentioned in the second video for World Language Assessment because of the clear connection between proficiency goals and real use of the language. I also noticed that the students interviewed have very positive insights about their experience. They describe the activities as "fun" and "motivating" and those are great accomplishment for any teacher or activity, especially at the high school level.

I am also interested in working with portfolios. I like the that student can make their own choices, have ownership, and reflect on their work and learning experience.  But because of their complexity I would probably wait after a couple of years of teaching to implement in my classroom.  I have a friend who is a Spanish teacher with more than 30 years of experience and she does a year-long portfolio. I have attached (with her permission) the instructions and rubric she uses for it.

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In discussing and reading about different types of assessments in this class and my social studies classes over the last week, I have really enjoyed learning about using assessment to gauge how to help a student rather than just giving them a grade. For example, I plan to incorporate a lot of formative assessments to help myself decide what my next step should be with my classroom. Simple assessments like having students put their heads down and giving me a thumbs up or down or a number on their hand 1-5 to tell me how comfortable they feel about a certain topic will be a main stay in my room. There are a ton of ways to get creative with these like having students make noises or faces to show their comprehension which will keep things entertaining in the room.

Additionally, I like the 5 finger assessment from O'Brien a lot. I think it does a great job of helping students understand what they should be reading as well as giving me a glimpse of where reading levels are in the classroom. Attached below is a picture explaining the assessment.

Lastly, I really like the idea of having students create quizzes as a form of assessment. The assignment does not have the pressure of an actual quiz, but students are still required to think critically about the readings they have done in order to show they know what other people should know about the work. I think its a creative way to get students engaged, especially if you let them take each others quizzes.

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I enjoyed that the material this week talked about formative assessments, which while being less important percentage wise, I feel are still very important. I have enjoyed learning them as a way to measure how clear I am presenting the material as well, a performance evaluation that also serves to help student solidify the concepts of the lessons, that is a great win win in my opinion.
An assessment I have infrequently used, but would like to use more, is the five finger rule check in, which is bluntly a survey on how your students are doing the material. It is not an in class worksheet or homework assignment, and if it is explained well enough in the beginning it would only take half of a minute to perform the assessment. The five finger rule refers to a scale of understanding by your students by asking them to hold up fingers based on how they are feeling on the content. I have seen the fingers mean different amounts, but I personally use the following (I have also attached an image that shows it as well, see the bottom) 1: the concept, idea, etc is too easy. 2 it is medium easy, maybe struggled once. 3: it is just right, you feel comfortable with it but not too comfortable. 4: It is challenging, the student may need someone's assistance 5: it is overly challenging, beyond current level, etc. This rule is often used to help students decide what to read, but I like modifying it to being a verbal check in while in class. I can simply ask the students how everyone is doing working on task x, or understanding story y, or combination of both z. I will stress honesty with the students to show how they feel based on fingers, as a downside I can see for this assessment would be students not feeling confident enough to admit they are having trouble when most students aren't. If this assessment is introduced early on in the year it can be consistently used throughout to measure how effective the lesson is in under a minute. I see this assessment working best in middle school.

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Assessment is a hotbed of an issue. Generally, I tend to gravitate toward authentic testing based on student construction of knowledge and formative over summative visions of assessment. Allow me to defer to Alvermann: "Regardless of the assessment used, assessments must be ongoing and flexible." This pretty much sums up my approach to assessment.

This unit contained a lot of useful methods and models for assessment in the social studies content area, and included plenty of formative techniques, as well.  Criterion-referenced scoring, provides a valuable alternative to norm-based testing models. By emphasizing mastery of a preset target value, criterion-referenced scoring is marked on a pass/fail basis. This may work well if it is too limited to employ traditional norm-based methods.

The Five Finger Rule, is a particularly handy way to judge a text's appropriateness for instructional use in the classroom, while the Motivation Survey (O'Brien & Dillon, 2004) measures student interests and engagement potential, highly relevant instructional choices in a differentiated classroom.

The Cloze Procedure was designed around the fact that reading is a contextual exercise. Similar to a CRI, the Cloze Procedure blanks every fifth word and students are given to opportunity to fill in the blanks.  Generally, 58% accuracy is interpreted as independent-level reading, while less than 43% is considered 'frustrated' reading. It might be easy for a teacher to gauge his students' reading abilities based on standardized test score results, but the cloze procedure may give a better understanding of the nature of student reading problems from a process, rather than a "content," perspective.

The successful instructor integrates regular formal assessment into his lessons. Wormeli discussed three techniques beyond hand-raising to invite student feedback and engagement. While popsicle sticks and traffic lights have their advantages, the white boards were my favorite option. White boards give every student a chance to answer and engage with teacher inquiries, and students are invited to take pride and ownership out of their display of answers.

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When I volunteered in past ESL classrooms as an assistant, I always wondered how teachers picked out the reading materials to match the students’ skill levels and how they tailored a text to meet the needs of all of their students. Reflecting on that thought, I realized that soon enough I would have to do the same and I was not aware of all the variables that come into play when choosing the right texts. From the Microsoft Sway presentation created by Dr. O’Brien, I learned that much more than the skill level of the students goes into choosing the right text for the classroom. While the skill levels of the students are important, the other factors that need to be considered are the length of the text, the students’ interests and motivation for reading, their prior knowledge and familiarity of the content, vocabulary, and sentence complexity within the text. The example brought up in the presentation was the Harry Potter series, and however the series might have been considered too difficult for some learners, their motivation to read the book was high enough that they succeeded in finishing the book and understanding it.

So to tie those thoughts into what I would use to assess the literacy in an ESL context and how I would do it, I would like to implement the five finger test that Dr. O’Brien introduced in the Sway presentation, in my classroom before we start reading a new book. This informal assessment would help me gather whether the text is too difficult/easy or just right for my students. By doing this, I will save everyone from a lot of frustration, grief, and most importantly, time! The five finger test would help me assess the readability and accessibility before diving into the material.

To further understand if students are truly understanding the content, I would perform a formative assessment using Kahoot! This website/app would allow me to provide the students with a fun interaction to check their understanding and figure out which concepts need more explanation and if the students are understanding the main points. This website allows anyone to make short quiz games in a short amount of time. I would use the app to create a live game show environment in the classroom. Students would have some type of mobile device that allows them to quickly punch in their answer to the question I have up on the board. It tracks students’ progress throughout the game and displays the results instantly, so I would see the most commonly missed questions in the moment and know what concepts to go over.

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One resource I'd like to use is the website Flocabulary, which uses hip-hop and rap to help students learn new vocabulary words in different subjects like social studies and science. I used this resource when I tutored at Laura Jeffery Academy and thought it was great at engaging students' interests and helping them improve their vocabulary and reading comprehension in content areas. The website also offers worksheets to help students learn and understand how to use the vocabulary words in their content subject. From what I remember, the worksheets use multiple strategies like cloze procedures and CRIs to assess students' understanding. What I really liked about this website was that it used music videos for the songs that showed the vocab words to help students visualize the words and the context that they are used in and that there are speed options to slow down the video if the rap is too fast for the students. It also wouldn't be hard to create CRIs or cloze procedure worksheets for these songs if the pre-made worksheets don't seem like a good fit for the class. I will say that the biggest downside to this resource is that it is not free and requires a school or district membership in order to be accessible. There are, however, some videos that can be accessed for free, just without the course work. You can find an example of a free video here

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The most important takeaway for me from this week’s readings and videos was the importance of formative assessment.

Formative assessment is a significant part of classroom teaching, both because it allows the teacher to get a sense for how the class is doing and because the students to evaluate their own understanding. There are a number of good, direct formative assessments mentioned in the videos like the red/yellow/green traffic light signals and mini whiteboards that are great for the teacher side of things. However, in the World Language Assessments for Learning video they show how activities can be planned that are both practice and a sort of embedded formative assessment for language. This type of assessment is what the Alvermann excerpt would call “authentic”, because the students are engaged in realistic conversation that gets them to practice and assess the learning goals (for example, the use of the past tense) at the same time. Perhaps most importantly, this type of activity provides natural feedback that is critical for learning.

By including as much ongoing formative assessment as we can, teachers can help their students advance and make sure that everyone is grasping the content.

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I was really interested in learning about the different methods of assessment and their various uses.  When I volunteered teaching Spanish to developmentally disabled adults I used to give instructions and then say, "everyone who understands raise your hand".  I felt this was a good alternative to having people who didn't understand raise their hands as I felt that might draw too much attention to them and thus make people less likely to admit if they didn't understand my instructions, which may not have been sufficiently clear.  Looking back, this comprehension check was a bit of an assessment itself -- an assessment of my ability to give clear instructions that were easily interpreted by a particular demographic.

In reading Alvermann I really liked the idea of a cloze assessment in either English or Spanish.  It allows students who perhaps aren't comfortable with a speaking assessment still demonstrate knowledge, and as an instructor it would be easy to gauge what words/concepts need to more attention in class by seeing what words were commonly missed.

If there were particular words that a majority of the class missed, it's my job as a teacher to revisit these words and concepts (like in the Kirch video with "draw a conclusion") in an new way, then re-assess, potentially with another cloze test or other form of exit slip.

The following is an example of an assessment that could be done for Spanish students.

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Before engaging with this week's texts, I thought assessments were daunting. I assumed they were primarily summative and hefty projects. I really liked the idea of having more formative assessments. In his video, Rick Wormelli said he believed formative assessments were the most important type of assessment. I liked the idea of starting the semester or class by having students fill out the "Dimensions of Motivation" survey to better understand what they are passionate about and how they prefer to learn. I also really liked the ideas presented in the "Classroom Experiment" video on how to check in with students to encourage participation. I want to teach high school students, so some of the tools may be a bit elementary, but I did think it would be useful to have physical representations of student understanding (like the traffic light cups). Additionally, I would love to be able to use mini whiteboards in my class. I know I found them a little distracting as a student, but I also felt like they gave me an opportunity to make myself heard. Similarly, it allows ELL students an opportunity to write instead of speak, if that is the way they prefer to communicate.

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From this week’s reading and video assignments, I learned how important it is to assess your students to determine where their comprehension is in comparison to the goal. Formative tests are the most effective way to help teachers support their students at their various levels by determining the actual needs of each student. I will be working in an elementary level ESL classroom so it will be important to determine how well my students are able to comprehend basic vocabulary in order to understand the content.

I particularly liked the Five Finger Rule Assessment. I think this is a quick and easy way to assess students’ comprehension levels of the vocabulary they need to know in any content area. I liked that this could be used for a wide variety of ages, but, in my opinion, is particularly useful for the elementary aged students I will be working with. It would be an excellent way to determine what I would need to focus on to support my learners.

I also liked the mini whiteboard assessment strategy. Mini whiteboards have been extremely popular in the classrooms where I’ve worked. I would use this strategy in my ESL classroom so that every student has the opportunity to give an answer, even the students who are apprehensive about speaking to the class. I would be able to skim over the whiteboard answers to determine who has a good comprehension of the topic and who does not. This strategy could be used for vocabulary and spelling, as well as short answers to open-ended questions. It could also be used if my students have questions they want to ask to get a better or deeper understanding of a concept.

In order to organize my teaching to the needs of my students, I plan on utilizing as many formative assessment strategies throughout my curriculum.

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I think that informal assessments of student understanding are very useful and beneficial to both the teacher and the student. One simple way that I have done this in the class is asking the students to rate their understanding from 1-5 (1= I don't understand, 5= I get it!). This is a quick way for teachers to see how well the students are understanding the lesson. It is also a great way to check in with the students. It takes about 10 seconds to do, and the teacher knows just by scanning the room if anything needs to be repeated or if the students are ready to move on. A more detailed assessment strategy is the 3-2-1 exit ticket. At the end of a lesson, the students write 3 things they learned, 2 things they are interested about, and 1 question they still have. This is also a great way to mark daily participation. It gives students the chance to write in detail what they know and what they still struggle with. As the module by Dr. O'brien showed, there is a frustration level, instructional level, and independent level that students can be working in. With these two assessment strategies, students can demonstrate what level they are at, and the teacher can respond appropriately.

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I agree with the point in the video that informal, not standardized assessments are most useful to teachers help students learning. Because getting feedback is how students learn, rather than just being tested. During my K-12 education, I did lots of formal tests. In middle school, we were tested every week, and will be ranked. Everyone can see each other's class ranking. This makes every week's test high stakes testing. However, every time after the test, we just got a score, and I didn't want to see the test questions anymore. Because the teachers had limited time for giving lectures, they don't usually have time to give us feedback about the tests. There were some benefits of the frequent formal test, like the students would study very hard for keeping the rank in the class, but I doubt the efficiency of it, and it may give students too much pressure.
As an language teacher, I think

Assessing with Role Play and Simulation is a good way to help the students master the language skills they learned. What I will do is to give students the situations, explain to them the role play they will do. Then give them some time to write the transcripts. If they need help to polish, I will be there help. The first couple times I will let them have the transcript with them, may be for midterm or final test, they have to memorize the sentences they wrote. I was once did this in my Spanish class, and I learned a lot.

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I think that the approach of the "five finger"/"give me five" method is good exit strategy for assessing how students felt about the difficulty of readings. I can see myself using this method as a assessment of my students that gives me easy feedback on how to shape future readings. a similar method that I liked was the traffic cups method both as a method for student to show teachers that they are moving to fast and also as a informal method to check understanding after a reading or assignment. I also appreciated the modified "Popsicle stick" method shown in this video to speed up the class. maybe you could give each student a "skip" stick so they still have some choice in the process of classroom participation. I also think that this method works better for different age groups.

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The Classroom Experiment - formative assessment techniques

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I would like to use Cloze Passages/Assessment (Alvermann et. al., p 144) mainly because I think they can be a good way to establish a baseline while also building it into the curriculum and content. I currently do not have an intrinsic understanding of what constitutes each reading level, and I think a Cloze assessment could help me not only establish what the students are able to read, but also what I should be assigning. It could also be implemented as a classroom activity where we explore a text together while also using the text as a Cloze Assessment.  I think in a Social Studies class this is a technique that could be implemented in conjunction with the content of the course while providing feedback to me and to the students about their reading abilities. I do think that Social Studies should also be careful with this assessment, because the disciplinary language in Social Studies can be very broad. As a Social Studies teacher you need to also be careful about sources or readings that use english in a different way than today, and these passages should not be used with a Cloze Assessment

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01 Using a Cloze Test to Assess Reading Level

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I found the Motivation Inventory very interesting.  This can help as a pre-assessment when planning units and how much reading would be sufficient to include.  Also, it could help develop differentiated instruction for students based on their own self evaluation of interest and motivation.  I found a good example of this online. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Aysha_Bey/post/Can_someone_advise_on_a_course_development_on_how_to_defeat_laziness/attachment/59d6296fc49f478072e9c3f7/AS%3A272469917667330%401441973298656/download/STUDENT+MOTIVATION+INVENTORY.doc

I also liked the mini whiteboards as a quick formative evaluation after or during a reading exercise.  If the class has ipads or tablets as well, they could open a drawing program and write there answers that way instead of the white boards.  I like that they all would have a chance to answer and that it is more or less anonymous as they do not have to let others see their answers.  This could be a good way to check vocabulary understanding as well, if you have students write down a word they didn't understand and you can address it to the class as a whole.

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I really liked the assessment of reading passages guidelines provided in the textbook excerpt. I like the idea of being able to "crunch some numbers" to get a general sense of what a text difficulty might be like, but that they also provide the stipulation of how you should never accept these numbers blindly and without considering your "gut" feeling about the text, or how you feel it will complement your and your students' goals.

In terms of assessing students, especially in world languages I think that formative assessments will be particularly important. I always loved using white boards as a student, just like they showed in the video about how to increase student participation to more adequately and systematically perform informal formative assessments. This would happen during daily interaction/communication tasks, where I would be able to informally assess where the students were at, and perhaps at the end of the lesson more so "formally" assess them via whiteboards or something similar.

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"Systematic observation" is one technique I plan to use in my social studies classroom to assess literacy. This technique emphasizes an analytical approach through print concepts, word reading, and reading/writing vocabulary. "Systematic observation" provides valuable  insight about every student's literacy development. I would use this strategy through daily reading of content, taking notice of penmanship through written assignments, and taking the time to learn each individual student's learning style to gather information about literacy strengths and challenges.

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Reading Recovery Council of North America

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Effective Literacy Practices - Assessing Through Close Observation

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There were a great takeaways from this weeks's course material that I could definitely use in my classroom some day.
In the video, The Classroom Experiment, I thought the popsicle sticks to choose students was a great idea. I actually was a substitute for a teacher who implemented this, and the children really liked it. In a high school setting that has access to technology, Kahoot or Google Forms might be another way to implement the similar idea of having all students participate, instead of just some. These two modes would also allow the teacher if there are certain topics that need more attention and have data to support that, instead of just assuming.
In the Content Area Reading and Literacy book, Alvermann discusses how there are different types of assessment. The authentic and performance assessment are very similar and are based on "broad range of assessments tasks and data" (133). Most Agriculture classes have something called an Supervised Agriculture Experience project, or SAE. It usually begins at the start of the semester and the teacher provides feedback throughout the process. This allows students to be in command of their learning, with help along the way. It allows an opportunity for them to relate information that is taught in the classroom to real world applications, which usually makes students understand and want to learn more because they can apply it to something other than to just a grade in a class. The link provided shows a variety of students involved with the project and how they think it will help them in their future endeavors.
https://www.calaged.org/SAE

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While reading the textbook, I really liked the idea of using an Attitude and Interest Inventory (Alvermann et. a., p 148-150) to gauge student reading habits. Engagement is one of the most important elements in how students approach reading assignments. I'd like to refer to Dr. O'Brien's mention of the "Harry Potter" factor, in which students dove into books that technically exceeded their reading level because they were interested in the content. Such and inventory would allow me to make more interesting and effective choices in the readings I put before my students.

Another formative tool that I want to use was the Cloze Assessment. As someone who is not anywhere near confident in terms of writing assessments, Cloze Assessments appeal to me because of their low level of difficulty and high level of flexibility. They can be applied to any subject area, and, depending on the difficulty level of the passage used, they can also give me a good understanding of the kind of knowledge that students bring into the course in addition to reading levels. The fact that they don't require much math beyond calculating scores is also a plus. One thing to keep in mind is that communication is key for this assignment in regards to synonyms. Needing precise words is not entirely fair to students, but I also can't let them change the meaning of a given sentence. This page has a good breakdown of how to create a Cloze Assessment: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/cloze-test-reading-comprehension/

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Post with 0 views. Alvermann Attitude/Interest Inventory

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This week's presentation by Dr. O'Brien brought up a lot of good ideas about reading assessments. I think assessment is key to finding out what our students are understanding and where they need more help. As an ELL teacher there is the additional challenge of making sure the language of the assessments is accessible to the students. As we saw in the teaching demo by Samantha Kirch, just a couple of unfamiliar vocab words can lead students into misunderstanding the question.

My favorite assessment tool for evaluating texts was the "give me five" method. I liked how this tool could be used to help students evaluate a text for themselves. Since our goal is to get students reading at home and reading as much as possible, it's really important for kids to know how to evaluate a book for themselves. This way they can enjoy reading more.

The tool I liked best formative assessment was the CRI. I think this method makes a lot of sense. It is very flexible and can be adjusted to suit the needs of my students. The CRI can show me where the gaps in understanding are, whether its in vocab, recall, or inference. I can then make a plan to reteach whatever aspect was missing the first time.

Last, I like the idea of the traffic cones as a way for students to communicate without raising their hands. I have been teaching in a big room with lots of kids and they easily get frustrated when they think you are ignoring them. I think this way they can keep working and don't have to worry that I won't see they need help. I like Rebecca K's modification of using cards instead of cups because the cups may be distracting for the younger kids I plan to work with.

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One of my favorite summative assessments in middle school was creating comic strips. This assessment was very unique and used technology in a cool way. Using the Comic Life program online, we were asked to pick one historical event during a specific time period. Our comic had to cover one event, at least three prominent figures, and at least three perspectives (our teacher had us focus on gender, race, political ideology and class during a unit about the Civil War)
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http://comiclife.com

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Joseph B

Hey class,

One of my main goals here is to share something that might be unique, even though it may suffer from many shortfalls.  Here I go…

The first assessment strategy is what I’d call “Demonstration of Competence via Teaching” or DCT.  I’ve always believed, and some evidence suggests, that true mastery of anything comes when we teach something to someone else.  I’ve seen good pilots and ship navigators become experts by teaching their craft to others.  In practice, we would teach our students all the important aspects of being good readers and provide constructive feedback through formative assessments.  After graduating from the “crawling and walking stages” of reading, they could start “running” by teaching younger students in the school reading comprehension practices.  Take a look at this Time Magazine article.  By watching our student teach another student, we can assess his or her competency.  Our student will also grow during the “assessment”. The younger student will also get valuable instruction from an older peer.

http://ideas.time.com/2011/11/30/the-protege-effect/

Another assessment strategy could be “Flexible Demonstration of Competency” or FDC.  This method is an outgrowth of the notion that, as educators, we should be firm in standards and learning targets, but open to how students prove to us that they’ve met those outcomes.  It also is a reflection that in post-high school professional settings, creativity and ingenuity are critical skills to possess (people are more frequently asked to produce a desired effect or end state, not specifically told how to get something done). In practice, an educator could tell a student to review the SCLA reading rubric, tell him or her that it was going to be used as assessment device, then have the student read an article of several hundred words.  When done reading, the student would be told to demonstrate to the teacher proficiency in the SCLA criteria in whatever way they wanted.  It would be their opportunity to surprise you as to their chosen method.

Though this source suggests providing limited options, the vision is similar.

https://files.nwesd.org/depts/eadmin/Admin_Website/CIT-CL/LiteratureReference/JournalArticles/Student-Centered-Classroom-Assessment_Stiggins.pdf

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"Dimensions of Inventory," O'Brien, Dillon, et. al.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iDmJPVmlPdAOtYYTs5QuEKun_Y8CyoD_/view

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I think that the Rick Wormeli video was very important, and I definitely agree that formative assessments should be flexible and should guide your teaching process. He mentions that summative assessments that do not go well can be transformed into formative assessments, essentially meaning that you are allowing retakes or make-ups for assignments or tests. I think that for the most part, you should know how your students are going to do on an exam or project. You should be aware of where they are at, and you shouldn't be completely surprised by them all failing--that would show that you did not take the time to check in and assess their learning along the way.

I am not entirely keen on the idea of the idea of the popsicle sticks from the Classroom Experiment video. I think the idea of mini whiteboards works a lot better, because everyone is participating, rather than one student being called out at random. This way, students who are more shy are still getting a chance to share, without fear of being the center of attention. I also really liked the traffic lights idea. I think this is a great way for students to signal that they need help without in a way that is quick and clear to everyone involved. I think that for older students, the cups would be less of a distraction than it would be for elementary or middle school students, but I think cards could also be helpful.

I also liked the idea of the cloze procedure from the online module by Dr. David O'Brien. I think that it could be helpful to make it clear how the students are handling the reading passages that are being given to them in a way that also keeps their attention. Even looking at the examples of cloze procedures, I had to think a little bit harder about what I was reading, which helped me pick out what I understood about what I was reading.

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One use of assessment from Alvermann et al. that I think can be very useful is the “Inventory of Attitudes and Interests” (p. 149). I think that asking students to provide their own attitudes towards a certain topic, or towards a certain skill, can be very valuable for the teacher, as well as for the student. As teacher, it can provide us information as to what the students like and dislike. It can help us know what will work right away, and what may need more “sales promotion” (p. 148). Such assessment can include questions such as “I want to know more about X”, or “I never understood why X is important”. This can be helpful, and increase direct and transparent communication between the teacher and the students. For the students, it can provide an opportunity to reflect on their own learning, and help them become more active participants in their own learning. Additionally, if the students self-reflection presents a picture that is much worse than how the teacher experience that student, it can be an opportunity for the teacher to provide more positive reinforcement.
(see photo at the bottom, because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to embed a photo in the middle of the post)

The other tool that I will use is readability formulas. Beginning with the caveat expressed both by Alvermann et al. (p. 166), and by Dr. David O’Brien, these formulas are based mostly on word length and sentence length, and there many other factors, such as interest, organizational structure, former knowledge etc, that determine readability. That said, these formulas can be helpful in determining whether a text is suitable for a certain age or not. However, as a social studies teacher, I will want to work with my students on strategies to approach difficult texts. Primary sources are often not written in grade level english. Therefore, these formulas can be helpful because sometimes it is possible to find an easier text, but sometimes the text is valuable in its original form. In such cases, the formulas can be helpful in determining how much preparation or adaptation the students may need in order to approach the text. The text I used for the CRI, for instance, was too difficult for middle school, which I intend to teach. Part of it was a primary source (part of a speech) and part of it was an introduction that I wrote. Using this tool, in retrospect, I would try to simplify my introduction, and perhaps give more context to understand the speech.

Here are links to some of the formula tools:

The SMOG Readability Formula

Fry Readability Graph

Raygor Readability Estimate

Here is an example of an "Inventory of Attitudes and Interests" (Alverman et al. 2013, p. 149)

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I am going to be teaching low-level ELLs so my assessments will be geared towards kindergarten or first graders.

First of all, the presentation by Dr. David O' Brien talked about using an informal reading inventory (IRI) to determine a student's reading skills. This brought up the assignment we did earlier on in this class, the content reading inventory (CRI). I think that this is a great way for teachers to get an understanding of how much each student comprehends from the reading. This activity gives teachers a quick and easy way to assess students that can be related to what they are discussing in class.

Flipgrid can also be a great way for teachers to assess students. This site gives students the power to use their voices and share their thoughts. By having students do this as homework, they can feel comfortable in their own home and have time to plan out what they are going to say ahead of time, if they would like. It takes some of the pressure of speaking in front of the class off of the student but is still a great way for the teacher to get a grasp of how students speak. By using this site, I can have my students give a summary of a reading out loud. This allows me to assess their understanding of a story as well as any difficulties they may have with speaking. It kills two birds with one stone, so to say. This tool can be very efficient and a different way to get everyone to share their thoughts or understanding about anything we are reading.

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In my Technology for Teaching and Learning class, the professor showed me the website Quizizz. It is similar to Kahoot! But it allows the students to take the quiz at their own pace and not rush to get it done. It also allows the teachers to assign it as a gradeable  homework quiz instead of just a game quiz. This could be used to test their knowledge of certain smaller concepts (Vocab, past tense, etc) and still make it fun.

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Quizizz — The world’s most engaging learning platform

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Find and create gamified quizzes, lessons, presentations, and flashcards for students, employees, and everyone else. Get started for free!

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I wish to talk about authentic assessment and the no hands answering of questions.

A couple of my classes have talked about authentic assessment as a vital part of assessment and learning. Authentic assessment focuses on constructing knowledge in a discipline through real world application (Alvermann (2013), 133). This involves students and teachers working together to learn vocabulary and basic concepts by working through prior knowledge. Then, students take the reigns from the teachers to construct their own understanding. Usually, students work towards a project at the end that has an outside school application. I would use these as summative assessments as they allow students to demonstrate knowledge and application while permitting creativity.
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm

In the Classroom Experiment video, students were not allowed to raise their hands to answer questions, but were called upon by the teacher randomly drawing sticks with student's names on them out of a cup. This technique allowed for the teacher to check in with students at random and push all student to be active and accountable in their learning. I could see myself doing with with numbers on desks or table spots and drawing sticks with these numbers on them. For example, stick number 12 would correspond with spot number 12, so the student sitting there would have to answer the question. This would qualify as an informal formative assessment to give me a snapshot of where students are in the content.

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It felt good to hear a professional (Rick Wormeli) explain that summative assessment is less important that formative assessment. That has always been my feeling, but it seems like summative assessment is much more prioritized in most classroom and school settings. It seems like that may have to be a change that happens from the bottom up. Formative assessment focuses on descriptive feedback, and checks for understanding. I agree with Wormeli that these strategies are so important in the classroom.

I really like the idea of utilizing oral assessments for English language learners through things like role plays, or describing pictures/texts, etc. This method provides the opportunity for output, which is such an important tool for language learning. It also provides a means to asses our students language leaning while they are (hopefully) having fun as well. To do oral assessments it would be necessary to have a checklist of language gaps we are checking for, and/or common errors made by students, which would inform our future teaching. Feedback and checks for understanding could be worked into oral presentations through practice rounds before the students present to the whole class. This could ensure that students were on the right track. We could also record the students oral presentations so they would have the opportunity to watch them back and notice the gaps.

Additionally, I like the idea of student portfolios/journals as a means of formative assessments. They shows students growth over time, and can be culturally relevant based on writing prompts, and what student are interested in writing about. I would be mindful of descriptive feedback while reviewing the journals and I think they would serve a purpose of encouraging the students as they note their progress.

As an overarching theme, Samantha Kirch noted the importance of "the loop" where teachers pre-assess, teach, post assess, and reteach. I think this will be a very important tool in in EL classroom and something that I intend to use to inform my practices in the classroom.

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I really enjoyed the don’t raise hands strategies suggested in The Classroom Experiment.  A modification that could be beneficial is the use of cards (see photo) rather than cups for the traffic light assessment.  I love that the students can indicate that they need help without needing to put their hands in the air and wait for the teacher to come by.  With this technique they can continue to write or keep working on other problems until the teacher is available to work with them one-on-one.

Kahoot, https://kahoot.it, is a really fun quiz tool that students can play using their mobile device or Chromebook.  It is a high energy, competitive, and interactive game that students of all ages enjoy.  It is also really easy for the instructor to set up.  Once you register and set up a quiz, you can easily access it for future classes.  When I used this in one of my classes I was surprised how competitive it became and who really knew their subject matter!  A new tool similar to Kahoot is Quizizz.  It is a lot like Kahoot but can be used as a personal assignment and will report the results for you.  https://quizizz.com  I haven’t yet used it, but am looking forward to giving it a try in September!

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As Rick Wormeli stressed, formative assessment is key to learning. He argues teachers need to spend equal amount of time on formative assessments as summative.

One way to do this is through https://www.peardeck.com. Pear deck is an add-on through google slides and provides teachers with both structure and flexibility for types of formative assessment. This can range from how comfortable you feel after discussing a heavy topic, answering or defining a concept, etc.

For literacy I think Pear deck can be a powerful tool to gauge comprehension. Were your students able to define a main concept? Does this align with your intention?

It is important to note, devices will be needed to use pear deck in your classroom.

Another pitfall of pear deck is it does not call for individual feedback. Wormeli stressed the importance of providing constructive feedback for students after formative assessments.

With this being said, another powerful assessment is pop quiz essays. While this sounds high stakes, I believe it could be designed with low risk for students while measuring how much they are able to comprehend. For example, I could picture myself assigning an article for homework and then the next day having students answer a questions through an essay.

This will allow students an opportunity to formulate their thoughts before a big class discussion, provide incentive to read, and give students an opportunity to practice and improve their writing.

To remove the stress and negative connotations of pop quizzes I would allow students to drop their two lowest grades and stress that I am grading not only on content but on growth and improvement.

This would give me many opportunities to measure my students throughout the semester as well as provide them with individual thorough responses. While this is a timely formative assessment I believe there is great value.

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In order to assess student understanding as a teacher moves though a lesson or unit, formative assessment and quick feedback is key.

One method I have seen used and would like to try is a  google form with add one for links based on a student’s right or wrong answer. Basically, a student goes though a google form and based on their answers, a  link to a video pops up to reteach or clarify a point about which they may have been confused. I like this method because it facilitates more than just a binary choices, but also gives the student a mini lesson for common mistakes. It can be used inside the classroom or as part of a homework assignment to assess learning prior to the next class period where new material will be taught. This way, an educator can anticipate hurdles and successes for students. This could be applied for assessing comprehension and for struggling readers, a link to reteaching or a video to clarify will be helpful. http://wordpress.barrow.k12.ga.us/21stcenturytips/?p=6861

Another method of assessment I would like to implement is student self reflection. I think that asking good questions to help students think about their learning in micro and macro ways is important to teaching life long learning skills. What do students still have questions about? What do they want to learn next? What are they proud of as they reflect on the week or the unit? With What or whom did they make a connection? These can be facilitated though a variety of methods, such as an exit ticket, free write, teacher-student interview, blog, podcast or a reflective journal.  I think this can be used for struggling readers as well so students can give the teacher feedback and teacher can adjust instruction. https://www.amle.org/BrowsebyTopic/WhatsNew/WNDet/TabId/270/ArtMID/888/ArticleID/586/Student-Reflection-A-Tool-for-Growth-and-Development.aspx

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One takeaway from the readings this week for me is that there are certain types of assessments best suited for the beginning and middle stages of a reading, lesson, or other literacy activity and there are some best suited for evaluating at the end.  I will describe one of each that I would use in a future classroom.

First, to assess student knowledge about a particular topic before starting an activity or to judge how comprehension is going at points during a lesson, I would use the Fist to Five Method. This technique is easy to fit anywhere within a lesson to quickly assess student comprehension of a text that the class is reading or an idea that is being presented.  I would take this method one step further to say that it could also be used to gauge learner interest in the topic that we are reading about; our course lessons discussed at several points how a learner's interest in a given topic can make a huge impact on their reading ability.  After asking the class to put up their "fist through five" regarding their comprehension or interest, the teacher can adjust to provide more scaffolding of background knowledge, difficult vocabulary, or text structure to assist the learners in getting more out of the lesson from that point forward.

Second, the assessment method I would use following a reading is called Pollev, a website designed to create quick and easy polls that can be administered to the class in both multiple-choice and short answer format.  The great thing about Pollev is that the results are instantly organized into easy to understand charts, so the teacher can see just how many students are getting the comprehension questions correct and what they are getting stuck on. Perhaps the coolest thing about this site is that it also generates word maps of the most commonly used words in short answer responses, which would be an awesome tool to identify major take aways from the reading or tricky vocabulary words. Lastly, being a poll this assessment doesn't have the pressure that a student may feel when presented with a quiz or test.

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The first assessment tool that I think would be beneficial for my content area (ESL) would be Quizlet. I used this website/app for multiple classes throughout my undergrad. The website, at it's most basic explanation, is an online notecard resource. Students can write anything on either side of the electronic notecards for practice later. There are different quiz options for students to take advantage of such as writing exercises, definition matching exercises, fill in the blanks, and activities that incorporate matching pictures with vocabulary words. Exercises give students scores after completion for quick review and assessment. In terms of content area specific resources, Quizlet has a subsection called "diagrams" which have specific activities for different topics including English learning activities (for ESL teachers). I would create activities for my students or have  them create their own activities and practice them throughout the class time. Scores would tell me what areas I need to focus on explaining in class next time.

The next tool that has potential to benefit teachers when looking at literacy assessment is Google Docs. When I shadowed a teacher last semester I saw many possibilities that this website has for an ESL class (and other classes as well). One example is, for a warm-up exercise, supplying a writing prompt or question for students to answer on Google Docs. Each student responds to it on their iPad or Chromebook. When the students are done, they "share" their document with the teacher's email address and their short-answers are evaluated. The teacher is able to see where each student's progress is and is able to change their lesson plan if needed.

The final tool that I would use in my class would be "The Five Finger Test" from our reading. I had not heard of this activity prior to reading about it for this class but I really like the premise of it and I believe it could be a quick way to gauge where your students' comprehension is. Basically, you have students read a passage aloud and every time they encounter a word or phrase that they do not know/ cannot pronounce correctly, they raise a finger. If a student raises 5 fingers, the passage is too high of a level for them. I would use this with my lower level ESL students to quickly assess their reading levels.

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For this post I am going to cover three formative assessment strategies - the first, Kahoot, I picked up from my time working in schools. The second, mini white boards, I picked up from the materials for this module. The third, exit tickets/exit passes I picked up from both my past experience and the material.

The first assessment tool, Kahoot, is a simple quizzing application that lets students compete against each other in real time using their phones, tablets, or computers. This strategy's strengths lie in its engagement (I have never met a student that does not enjoy Kahoot) and its immediate feedback. Students know within seconds whether or not they answered a question correctly, so they can adjust their future answers accordingly.

The second tool, mini white boards, entails giving each student their own small whiteboard at the start of class. Then, during class itself, instructors can prompt students to write down questions, answers, or thoughts on their boards to all be shared at once. This gives every student the opportunity to be involved in the class and gives instructors an immediate indication of student progress.

The third tool, exit tickets, involves students writing down short answers to one or two questions on slips of paper after a lesson. Instructors collect those papers and can see whether or not their students understand the content and can plan the next day accordingly.