Module 6- Student Assessment

 Hello everyone, 

     Welcome to my third blog post.  For this post, I will be discussing how module six has helped me think about student-centered assessment and how I will apply it to my future classroom.  First off, your standard student assessment is the process of evaluating your students' abilities and achievements.  Teachers use student assessment everyday in every classroom.  Some examples include: tests, quizzes, exit-slip questions, discussions, games, and much more.  What is important to know from these student assessments, is how you can take these assessments and use them to help get to know your students a lot better.  This is by using what is called "Student-Centered Assessments." 

     Student-centered assessments involve the active engagement of your students in setting goals for their learning and growth.  Teachers then monitor these goals and help address them along the way.  It is important that we teachers use the assessments that we give to help us learn the whole child (student).  This module has helped me learn how to make my future classroom a student-centered learning one in the following ways: Assessing student passions and learning styles, assessing 21st-century/success skills, formative assessment of content and skills, and assessing for instruction.  

     Assessing student passions and learning styles is one way I can make my future classroom a student-centered one.  This is very important when it comes to a student-centered classroom.  In physical education, students have many different passions and learning styles.  It will be very important to me to learn their different and favorite passions.  That way I can incorporate some of them into the lessons.  Learning everyone's learning style will be another important task for me.  Some may be quick learners, and then some not so quick.  I will use interactive technology tools like Flipgrid for example, to help with students tell me their different passions.  For learning styles, I could use technology tools like Kahoot, to give short fun quizzes at the end of each day to see who learned what.  Using these different interactive technology tools can help with accessing 21st-century/success skills and by formative assessment of content and skills.

     Having a student-centered classroom is a great way to improve a students' 21st-century/success skills.  These are the skills that they will use everyday in the near future.  In physical education, I can make sure that my students build on these skills by showing them how much fun physical activity and exercise can be.  That way they can build on it and live a healthier life.  How do I know if my students are building on these skills or not?  Well, having formative assessments of content and skills is a way.  Test data lets us educators know how students are progressing.  However, some do not provide us with the data we can truly use, especially in physical education.  I will use low-stakes formative assessments to assess my students.  That way I can learn which concepts and skills need to be helped with, and which ones students have mastered.  These types of assessments are not graded.  I could have students participate in game-like situations such as basketball to see who has mastered the skills of shooting, passing, and dribbling.  These types of learning environments make the classroom more student-centered, which turns into better student learning. 

     Assessing for instruction is the last one and everyone knows that teachers give instruction.  This is true, but sometimes teachers can give too much instruction and not have enough time for student hands on engagement.  The intent of my instruction one day will be to create learning activities and exercises that my students need, while also keeping it student-centered so my students enjoy it.  Using assessment to plan my instruction will provide me with the ability to not over do it, so I have more time for student engagement in activities.  This module has been a great learning experience for me.  It has helped me think about student-centered assessment in the following ways above.