Welcome back friends! It’s been a whirlwind of fun over here in our neck of the woods! Lot’s of learning, lot’s of learning growth, both inside and outside of school. The school year is ending (the craziest I think we’ve all endured), graduations, the start of summer vacation, all the fun stuff. I hope you all are excited for summer as well!
On the blog this week we will be discussing how, if, should, can we even-measure learning? I know it’s a loaded question that’s been asked over time and time again. With this year throwing us teachers and students alike for a loop, how can we even begin to test what anyone has learned? Standardized tests? Quizzes? Hands on learning assessments? What’s the best option?
Measuring Learning and Assessing
Starting out the next school year will be super exciting having most schools back in person! YAY! We all want to make sure students are comfortable and where they need to be to succeed in each and every grade level. COVID did cause some disadvantages with students because some of the hands-on learning had a different medium than we’re used to which was more technology.
The good news is students are much more fluent in technology and navigating online learning which is amazing. So how do we catch up so to speak and assess or measure what students have learned? Either way students have done a great amount of learning both inside and outside of school considering their lives changed dramatically for a year.
Not every student learns the same, not all study the same, and every student has different needs. There are many ways to assess what a students learned since every student has different strengths and weaknesses. Testing in some shape or form is a good practice to assess learning even though some take more effort on both parties, students and teachers. I think like most things in life, there’s no one way best way, or right way, to assess or measure learning-there are only multiple ways! And each way is a good way in respect to the student and teacher.
What are formal and informal assessments? What do they look like?
Other than formal assessments, there are also informal assessments that are just as valuable and very much needed. This includes observation which is a formative assessment so the teacher can gage what to teach next. Most of us as teachers do this unconsciously as we teach such as “thumbs up, thumbs down on how you feel about what we just learned” or using white boards to have students answer questions in group lessons.
We will need both informal and formal assessments this year to gage where students are at, but also to see what needs to be reviewed and practiced. Due to learning loss in some areas, it will be crucial to see what things need more attention than others. Easier said than done, but we will do it, and there’s nothing we can’t do! Just like this whole year of adapting to unfamiliar circumstances and new terrain.
Exciting News!
Thank you all for checking back in with the blog this week! I hope you all have a great start to your summer and are relaxing 😊 John and I have some exciting news on our TPT store The Teacher Team Teaching Resources | Teachers Pay Teachers ! We have just uploaded our 2,000th resource! It’s crazy to look back on our TPT journey and see how far we’ve come! We have so many fun and new things we are working on that we can’t wait to share- woo hoo! John and I are extremely happy with all the relationships and friendships we’ve created with you guys over the years. Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and here on the blog @theteacherteam.
See you all soon! Happy summer!
John & Carol
@theteacherteam
#theteacherteam