My learning goal for this semester was to begin assessing through observation; I chose this because I felt it was part of being a just teacher. Throughout this course, we have discussed the importance of assessing more than just the product a student puts out. As I entered my pre-internship, I was going to follow the advice from my teacher friends and mark down every time a student participated in class discussions. However, that first day I realized that my class was not very motivated to contribute and many answers were given by the same few students, therefore I did not feel that marking down whether or not a student participated in a discussion was really indicative of what they knew about the topic. Some students who contributed were way off topic and there are probably students who do not contribute who understand the concept very well. 

I then remembered that marking whether or not a student participated in class was not all that “observation” encompassed. I decided to use observation as a tool for my teaching, asking for student understanding and gauging how much time they needed for an assignment. I learned that my students needed more time than I originally planned for their two larger assignments, a magazine cover and brochure, which was fine because they were engaged and the classroom environment was a fun place to be in. I had a couple role play assignments however where I was able to mark down participation as a mark because through their collaboration and presentation, they were able to show me they knew the concept. 

At the beginning of the semester I only thought of assessment as being through a product, or as assessment of learning. I felt that peer and self assessments with students would not be accurate, however I have been recently doing many self-assessments for school and work and it is surprising how on par they are with my superior’s mark for me. Regardless of if a self-assessment contributes to their report card mark, utilizing assessment as learning helps students reflect on areas they are doing well and how they can improve in other areas, a great life skill. As per my goal, I wanted to incorporate assessment through observation, assessment for learning, which I struggled with incorporating until I remembered that participation is not all that observation includes. 

There are Five Big Ideas that helped me through my learning journey of assessment:

1. People show their learning in different ways. I am very good at putting my thoughts and other information down on paper, but not everyone is. I really wanted to create various assessments that would allow students who were not the best writers to succeed. In my pre-internship I had students complete visuals, exit slips, worksheets, research, and role plays so that each student could succeed. However there were some who missed a lot of school or struggled with writing on paper, so I created some of my worksheets online for their Google Classroom. I also had a group of students perform their plays just for me, and one boy reported to me verbally what he knew. 
2. Giving feedback is important to me. Many students at my school do not come from families who value school, some students are chronically absent, parents do not question their marks or go to parent teacher interviews, and therefore justifying a student’s mark is not important. However, as a student I always wanted to know how I did on an assignment and why, so I handed back every assignment that they handed in with positive comments and missing information so that they would have it for reference. I want my students to do well and to me this means sharing how they did and how they could improve. 
3. Providing assignment examples is important. Students need to know your expectations and to showcase this you can share a student sample or work through some of the assignment together. How can a student do well if they do not know what you want from them? Additionally, you have to be very careful with your wording on any worksheets you hand out or else many will do the bare minimum. 
4. I can use Bloom’s Taxonomy to create assessments. Though this does not directly relate to my goal this unconsciously became a guide on creating different assessments for my students. They needed to remember definitions, understand the concepts, apply the concepts to their lives, analyze and evaluate information, and create art works and drama productions.
5. Observation is not (just) participation. I came to this realization early on in my pre-internship as I mentioned. Observation can be written comments about how a student works in class, their reading or listening skills. Some teachers were working on Fountas and Pinnell while I was in the school and while I did not get to witness it, I have practiced it for a different university class before. Observation is meant to be used to track student trends over time and to help you best teach your group of students (time and understanding).