Blog Challenge 5: Assessment

The assessments I use most often come in the form of entrance and exit tasks. Every day when students come into the classroom, they know that the routine is to get out their science notebooks (I require composition notebooks), something to write with and begin answering whatever "starter question" I have on the board that day. This serves a couple of purposes, but it is mainly a quick way for me to assess students in a variety of ways. Depending on how a question is written, I can use it to assess the students' prior knowledge of a subject before beginning a lesson, what they remember from the day before, if they are making connections between new and known information, if they know and can use vocabulary...and all by just reading over their shoulder for a minute or two after I take attendance. I started setting a timer for between 3 and 5 minutes depending on the question and students are required to keep writing the whole time. I quickly take attendance and then move around the room reading over shoulders, making notes. Once the timer goes off, I usually ask for a few people to tell us about or read us what they wrote. Then use it as a focus, hook, springboard, review to begin that day's class and am much better prepared now knowing where to start and what to focus on. 

The other assessment I use is what are commonly know as "exit tickets." My version is usually 1-4 questions on a half sheet of paper that takes 5 minutes or less to fill out before the bell rings and they rocket out the door. This again helps me tailor my instruction to the class's needs and assess the effectiveness of my lesson as well. 

For me the important piece that makes both of these effective in my classroom with my style of teaching is the speed and immediacy of response and data. Things that are longer usually end up sitting in a stack on my desk until the feedback I would receive is no longer relevant and the time needed to grade them seems insurmountable. Even if there are 60 exit tickets to look at, I can easily get the needed info without feeling overwhelmed. Usually patterns emerge pretty quickly and I plan or adjust accordingly. 

Lastly, I have found that while being useful assessment tools, having a ritual for the beginning and ending of classes is essential to classroom management at the middle school level where there are so many transitions during the day, and the children have the attention span of a fruit fly. Quick and simple yet thoughtful and loaded with information, "starter questions" and "exit tickets" work for me. 

NOTE: I keep one long Smart notebook file through the year and just add starter questions to it each week. It works as an amazing review that way too.