Chapter 3 FIAE

Assessments are nurturing tools that help teachers guide future lessons. When beginning a lesson, teachers are advised to pre-assess the students’ knowledge. This allows them to gauge what they know, what they semi-know, and what they need more time to learn. Before crafting any assessments, teachers must know what they want students to understand by the end of the unit. The book recommends crafting the final, or summative assessment, first. This follows the principles of backwards design. The end assessment is also not restricted to a traditional test format. Various project ideas utilizing a students’ creativity or technology can be assigned as a final project. However, each project must clearly demonstrate that they have followed the rubric guidelines and have demonstrated complex understanding of the given topic.

            For the unit my mentor is conducting, he has planned the end assessment far in advance. The end goal is to create a 1 minute podcast detailing their way from Mt. Blue to their homes. He pre-assessed his students before I arrived in the schools with various worksheets. The pattern so far has been to introduce new information, reinforce it with small group work on worksheets, and continually revisit the information. A good example would be Google Earth. They will need to use google earth to calculate distances and directions in the final project. We introduced 12 google tools during my first week. For homework, they were to “play” with Google Earth some more because they would be assessed on their understanding. During the second week, I assessed each on the various tools and gave them a grade. Those who showed understanding will revisit Google Earth within the next two weeks. The small number who didn’t understand will be tagged for Academic Support Block.