TEACHING STANDARDS

    VARIETY OF ASSESSMENT

    Effective mathematics and science teachers use a variety of ongoing assessment strategies as sources of information to enhance the learning and teaching of mathematics and science.

    Assessment of students and of teaching, both formal and informal, provides teachers with data to make the many decisions that they must make as they plan and conduct their teaching. Assessment data also provide information for communicating about growth and achievement with individual students and with parents, other teachers, and administrators. The Pacific standards for assessment provide detail about the nature and uses of assessment. This standard highlights the relationship between teaching and assessment.

    Ongoing assessment is an integral part of the teaching and learning process. It enables teachers to adjust instruction to meet the particular needs of each individual student and directs the learning process toward achieving desired outcomes. Teachers may use many strategies to gather and interpret the large amounts of information about students' understanding of mathematics and science that is present in thoughtful instructional activities. Classroom assessment may take many forms including:

    • observing and listening to students as they work individually and in groups,
    • discussing their ideas and conceptions as part of classroom discourse,
    • interviewing students,
    • student-created products such as investigative eports, written reports, pictorial work, models and inventions,
    • formal performance tasks,
    • examining portfolios of student work,
    • paper and pencil tests.

    Each mode of assessment has particular strengths and weaknesses and is used to gather different kinds of information about student understanding and skill development. Effective teachers choose the form of assessment in relationship to the particular learning goals of the class and students' experiences.

    Analysis of student assessment data provides teachers with knowledge to better meet the needs of each student. It gives indications of students' current conceptions, the nature of their thinking, and how students know what they know. Teachers use this information to make decisions about:

    • individual student-teacher interactions,
    • modifications of learning activities to meet diverse student needs,
    • the design of learning activities that build from student experience, culture, and prior understanding.

    Effective teachers also assist students in formulating and constructing self-assessments. This process provides teachers with additional perspectives on student learning, deepens students' understanding of subject matter and its applications, and develops students' ability to assess and reflect on their own learning and accomplishments.

    Teachers also model self-assessment and reflection. They approach their own teaching with a spirit of inquiry, continually seeking to understand which plans, decisions, and actions are effective in helping students and which are not. Effective teachers assess, reflect on, and learn from their own practice. Effective mathematics and science teachers:

    • systematically apply the Pacific standards for assessment,
    • use a variety of assessment methods,
    • assess knowledge, skills, and values reflected in the Pacific Standards for Excellence in Mathematics and in Science,
    • assess reasons behind students' answers,
    • recognize the importance of teachers' observations and judgments in the assessment process.