Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)
Conduct an Internet search for online resources that illustrate the types and functions of Classroom
Assessment Techniques (CATs).
Design four CAT assessments that align to standards and content area instruction.
Identify each assessment as summative, formative, standardized, or self-assessment.
Summarize the benefits of each CAT.
Test 1: Direct Paraphrasing: Kindly paraphrase the following excerpt of Shakespeare’s play titled
‘Hamlet. ’
“To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end”
Purpose: The aim here is for the teacher to assess the student’s capability of transferring a
concept they have got into a story in a manner subjective to them and also understandable to the
listener or audience (GWU, 2015).
Test 2: A Single Sentence Summary: Following our watching of the first 15 minutes of the film,
summarize what is happening in one sentence.
Purpose: The aim is to see if students can effectively filter out the key concepts of a given story
and present them out as a single idea (Iowa State University, 2015).
Test 3: Examinations for Evaluation: If it takes five men one hour to complete painting a wall
that is two kilometers long. How long will it take if five more men are added. Note that all the
men work at the same rate. Explain your answer through workings or a statement to justify.
Purpose: The idea here is to find out if students have mastered a specific mathematical concept.
If several topics have been previously covered, questions can be set to check the degree to which
students understood (Iowa State University, 2015).
Test 4: Student Generated Questions: After reading the story of the hare and the tortoise, prepare
three test questions that you want your colleagues to answer about the story. Note, the answers to
the questions need to be found within the story (GWU, 2015).
Purpose: To help the teacher find out if students can evaluate key aspects of a story in an
independent manner.
Reference
Iowa State University (2015) Strategies to Check Student Learning in the Classroom (CATs).
