Assessment Blog Post 2

  The Ontario Ministry of Education document Growing Success for me has changed the ways I view assessment.  For me the sections on The Achievement Chart and Assessment for and as learning have offered the greatest change in perspectives.  Each subject's curriculum (Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, etc.) has a section detailing the achievement chart categories and what they mean for the specific subjects.  In Growing Success though it details what these categories mean more generally such as Knowledge and Understand, Thinking, Communication and Application.  The document goes on to explain what the grade levels for these categories entails relating to the provincial standards.  To me this is very important as the Achievement Chart helps to form my assessment of learning.  The language used in the Achievement Chart is what I would use to create rubrics.  To me a standard like this is really helpful for informing how to do assessment of learning in my placement.

  All of this being said there are different ways of assessment detailed in Growing Success, namely assessment for and as learning.  This is something I still feel I am grappling with to understand better.  I understand assessment as learning, it involves different forms of self and peer assessment so that students can better assess their own learning.  However, I am not sure when this form of assessment is most appropriate and if it is appropriate for all students at all grade levels.  I believe that self-assessment is something a teacher has to model, but I am unsure how.  This is something that I would like to look into more, how to model self-assessment of work to students and teach them how to do it.  Assessment for learning to me is a bit more confusing.  I know it involves diagnostic and formative assessment: diagnostic being assessment of student knowledge before instruction, and formative being assessment during instruction.  The problem is that I am unsure how assessment for learning looks like outside of exit cards, anecdotal notes, observations and conversations with students.

  Clearly my learning about assessment is not done as I still have many questions left to be answered and explored.  I can only try to move forward with an open mind and the ability to adapt to new knowledge and experience when it comes to assessment.