Blog #5 Webinar 6

 Prompt #5: "Reflect on your use of assessment in the classroom. On a scale of 1-10, ten being the highest, how would you rate yourself. What are your plans for becoming a "10" if you are not there already? How are you using assessment in the classroom to guide your instruction? Describe how assessment results are used to differentiate instruction within your class."

I would rate myself at about an 8 on my use of assessment. I regularly check my students understanding via walking around and checking the "you do" portion of the lecture. I also regularly ask questions to check for students understanding. I walk around and listen to conversations when asking them to reflect on what they know. I also give a lot of quizzes (3 per unit) in preparation for the unit exams. So, I think I do a lot for assessment. I have a slight problem figuring out how to use the assessments though lol. Problem is, how do you know when you need to go back and do more or when you can go forward? I mean its tempting to say "no student left behind!", but that seems kind of unrealistic given the amount of curriculum that you need to cover. So, do you move on when 50% get it? 70%? 80%? This is what I struggle with. Sure, when I see even my A students not getting something, its easy to say yeah they need more, but what if most of the kids are like "OK we get it", but some are like "HUH?" I am hoping to refine my use of assessment in the future. Getting to know the students needs individually, being able to anticipate the problem areas before hand (which comes from teaching more than one year), and tailoring instruction toward the problem areas before hand. It is difficult as a first year teacher to anticipate where the students are going to need the most help. Sometimes, I am basically wasting time going over stuff that is too basic, other times I fly through stuff that seems easy to me, but the students don't get.

Obviously, if the majority of students are lost, I will go over the material again. I will also use assessment on an individual basis by targeting the students that I know might me struggling during my 'walking around time'. I do need to develop a better understanding of when and where the students might need more help, but that I feel comes with time and practice. I taught a Computer Aided Design course when I got my Master's Degree. The first year, I struggled with figuring out what the students would need from me. By the third year however, I knew every question the students were going to ask, before they asked it. I could therefore, pre-attack those questions during instruction and focus on the topics the students most needed help on.