Week Three Assignment Two

Discuss what assessments are needed to measure students' learning outcomes and how teachers can address these common core learning standards if you have students of various reading levels.

My high school physics teacher once told me, “There is more than one way to climb a mountain.” In the same respect, there is more than one way to assess our students. Teacher should be using a variety of methods for assessing their students both individually and collectively. In our classrooms we have students that range in ability from high honor student to low special education student. We have been revolutionizing the way we view education to meet the needs of all of our students within one class environment.

While some children are on a higher reading level and others are below reading level, teachers need to ensure that the individual student is making progress. It is not to say that our reader that is below reading level should be reading at an exceptional level by the end of the year but instead should be making steady progress throughout the school year. This child should be assessed on both an individual level and a group-working ability level. His or her ability to work with other students is important to his or her learning process.

Running records are a great way to analyze students on a personal level and a recording of a group discussion is a great way to analyze students on a collaborative level. As I have stated, there are a variety of different ways to assess our students. Teachers need to ensure that they assess the child’s reading ability throughout the school year, possibly weekly or bi-weekly, and also assess the child’s ability to work with others and participate actively in group projects and collaboration.

The grouping of students in these collaborative group projects is also important. We would not want to place a group of extremely low students together because they would not receive inspiration or peer tutoring from the higher ability students. When our higher ability students are grouped with our lower students, they are confirming their knowledge by teaching the lower ability students what they already know.

            In order for a teacher to assess a child fairly, he or she must be able to watch that child throughout the learning process. It is important to watch for social cues between students as well as verbal and written cues. Teachers must be flexible in working with all of the different ability students in their classroom. They must also be able to assess their students on a variety of different types of instruction and on individual and group projects.