Incorporating Assessments
INCORPORATING ASSESSMENTS 2
Focus on modifying an existing lesson in your unit to incorporate assessment strategies throughout
the lesson. Using chapters 3 and 5 from the text (Van de Walle et al., 2013) to assist you, as well as
any other information from the required studies or your personal research, please answer the
following:
Explain the lesson you chose to make assessment changes. Why did you choose this lesson?
What assessment strategies will you utilize with this lesson? Why?
Include formative and summative assessment strategies, both formal and/or informal.
How will these assessment strategies guide your instruction through this lesson and into future
lessons in your unit?
Include embedded links to any written assessment used or include at the end of your paper.
Note: Not all assessments are paper and pencil assessments, so if you use a different type of
assessment, describe it clearly.
Incorporating Assessments
Incorporation of assessments to learning is an important process that gives an
opportunity for teachers to adjust and use student’s feedback to improve on their
performances (Iowa Department of Education, n.d.). Teachers are required to provide
learning targets, on-going student’s assessments, give examples of good and poor work, set
goals, and enhance the ability for students to track and self-assess themselves. They should
rethink of ways they can use the assessments in the classroom setting to adapt to lessons to
meet the needs of their students. This paper addresses effective strategies to be used to tackle
properties of quadratic equations and their graphing.
I choose this lesson because, in my previous engagement, most students had
difficulties in grasping the concepts. They were making errors because they were not able to
appropriately follow instructions as required. If I could go back and reteach the same lesson, I
would incorporate formative assessment strategies to enhance student’s understanding of the
lesson. Some of the strategies I would incorporate include the use of checklists, quizzes, daily
reviews, observations, repetition, and exit tickets. These strategies will provide effective tools
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that would foster mastering and retention capability (Boud, 2013). The use of repetition will
be a valuable tool to strengthen connections in student’s brains. To keep the students alert, I
will incorporate exceptional skills with varied timing. The daily review will assist me in
dealing with administrative purposes, for instance in checking homework and attendance.
Quizzes will act as a formative assessment tool and will help in giving guided instructions to
identify students who are struggling to grasp the concepts (Walle, Karp & Bay-Williams,
2013). I would administer these quizzes without notice to get accurate reflections of their
capabilities. I will utilize observation strategy to gather individual information about their
progress. It would be easier for me to gather information as I walk around the classroom and
observe those who are having trouble grasping the understanding graphing concepts.
Another useful strategy I will use is exit tickets. This will act as an informal quiz for
my students to gauge their understanding of lesson content. The tickets will also play a role in
guiding the lesson plans for the next lesson and give information that allows me to identify
students who are ready to move on. I will use all these assessments together with a checklist
to track and monitor student’s performance and progress in the unit. Across the top page of
the checklist, I will input a generic rubric with specific indicators and standards for all my
students to meet. I will utilize the student’s entries on the rubric section of the checklist to
track their understanding of the lesson and make informed decisions on what topic to teach
next.
In conclusion, for teachers to help their students, they need to use these assessment
techniques not only for examination purposes and assigning of grades but to know their
strengths and weaknesses. Since learning is a continuous process, incorporation of these
assessments helps in promoting growth, measure achievements, guiding instructions, and in
the determination of what is to be covered in the next lessons (Van de Walle, Karp & Bay-
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Williams, 2013). If teachers utilize these strategies effectively, they would be able to cover
their lessons satisfactorily and consequently reach to more students than before.
INCORPORATING ASSESSMENTS 5
Reference List
Boud, D. (2013). Enhancing learning through self-assessment. Routledge.
Iowa Department of Education. (n.d.). Assessment FOR Learning (Formative Assessment).
Van de Walle, J. A., Karp, K. S., & Bay-Williams, J. M. (2013).Elementary and middle
school mathematics: Teaching developmentally (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
PearsonEducation.
