Assessing Student Learning
As I read Chapter 13, the information about formative and summative assessments made me think about the weight assessments carry in the classroom. I’ve always known that tests and quizzes are important, but I didn’t fully realize how assessments should be woven into everything we do, not just something we tack on at the end. Slavin explains that assessments are most useful when they are designed to improve learning, not just measure it (Slavin, 2020), which challenged the way I’ve been thinking about them. I honestly felt a little overwhelmed at first because there are so many factors to consider: reliability, validity, fairness, various types of assessments, and ensuring that I’m measuring what I think I’m measuring. Slavin emphasizes that a good assessment must be both valid, meaning it measures what it is intended to measure, and reliable, meaning it produces consistent results (Slavin, 2020). While dissecting this chapter, the idea that assessments are not just for grading st...