Assessment TIPR + edTPA

Current Teacher Behaviors

1. My cooperating teacher uses daily handouts as formative assessments in which students practice the daily concept/skill. These are sometimes (but not always) turned in at the end of class so he can formally grade them and identify any patterns of mastery and struggle. When they are not turned in, he and I will walk around the room and informally assess how individual students are doing and if there are any points of confusion/questions. The informal assessment is fairly practical now since, with me in the picture, his workload is cut in half. On his own, I don't think he'd be able to visit every student each class and give instruction one-on-one feedback and additional instruction. These handouts always point towards the summative assessment, which in our current unit is a narrative story (performance assessment since students create the story and are only graded on components of writing rather than content of the story). The rubric for this story is based on the different concepts that are taught and then practiced on these handouts. This seems effective since, if the student can master the concepts each day and complete the handouts (which usually feature a section that asks them to write a part of their story that they can copy and paste onto the final summative assessment narrative), they've had daily practice on mastering the concepts that earn them mastery as well as the constant confidence boost of mastering the concepts. 

edTPA Prep

1. My cooperating teacher uses daily handouts as formative assessments in which students practice the daily concept/skill. These are sometimes (but not always) turned in at the end of class so he can formally grade them and identify any patterns of mastery and struggle. If there are areas where students don't seem to understand the concept, he will add it to a big review session he holds a few days before the summative assessment is due. When they are not turned in, he and I will walk around the room and informally assess how individual students are doing and if there are any points of confusion/questions. This is the most common instance of assessing, and allows us to see right away if a student still doesn't understand the concept. More importantly, we can ask them directly what they don't understand still and we can cater individual instruction to their learning style (which we can't do when teaching the class as a whole)
   
2. Though the handouts are usually pointed towards students being able to produce a small piece of writing they can actually use in their summative assessment narrative, they aren't adapted to individual needs very often. They are usually prompts for students to write a short scene off of or otherwise do more writing. We try to address specific needs when we go around the room and work with students one-on-one (where I've been able to have more visually inclined students draw out a storyboard to help write out an outline for example), but writing is the sole aim so it's all we practice with.
   
   
3. He'll usually give feedback right away during our informal walkarounds, pointing out strong cases of writing and mastery of the concepts or observing that they don't quite have it down (in which instances he'll usually review the assignment goals and instructions with them). This is usually the best feedback since it's him talking to a student face-to-face and catering the second wave of instruction just to them. When the handouts are turned in they don't receive good feedback, just a grade and any notes about things they missed. Luckily the informal, face-to-face feedback is most commonly given and always presents students a goal ("I'll be back around in 5 minutes, can you pick a prompt by then and tell me what you're thinking for the beginning of your story?") and is never demeaning or intimidating. Even when students have nothing finished, we look for ways to help them get something down on the page that they can build off of. We always encourage them to tell whatever story they want to tell in order to build enthusiasm for the project and belief in their abilities to produce a product we want to read.

Students Needs

1. Personally, I think they need more formal assessments (turning in small pieces of writing) with written comments that encourage what's working well and pointing out what could use some tweaking. While the informal talks we have walking around the room are encouraging and give students small goals to work on, they don't ever require them to produce and turn in writing until the summative assessment is due, which I feel is too late to get more formal feedback. The way we do it now robs them of the experience of writing something semi-permanent down and having it assessed. Everything is just kind of in the aether until the big project is due. I also think that, though this is a writing unit, we could assign different assessments other than writing short scenes and paragraphs. Having students do a visual storyboard or characterization chart/graph could help them with outlining and characterization and vary the learning approaches so class isn't as monotonous. It would also engage different parts of the brain and bolster other types of intelligence.

Plan for your Lesson

3. I will definitely introduce a more visual formative assessment to my lesson so the students can create a visual representation of character. Since I'm teach a lesson on characterization, which addresses understanding and knowing a character in a more profound way than just a few character traits on a page, I will implement some sort of character chart that has them visualize their character, their setting, and some of the character's traits in order to vary the assessment type, engage other intelligence types/areas of the brain, and vary the class up so they're challenged with something new (hopefully creating some disequilibrium).