There are three types of assessment that are extremely useful. The first is portfolios. They are very good at showing valid student mastery over time. They also give the student an opportunity to reflect on their own progress and make goals based on that knowledge. They are flexible and can be either all hard copy or include digital artifacts as well. However it is difficult to assign them a letter or number grade therefore some teachers avoid using them for grading purposes. I didn’t realize how many forms they can take.
The second form of assessment in this chapter is rubrics. They are really useful because, if done right, the student has much more clarity about what is expected on a big project, and the teacher has a more uniform set of criteria with which to assign a grade for a project. But they do have less consistency from teacher to teacher and even from day to day. I feel a little intimidated by creating my own rubrics. There seem to be a lot of things to keep in mind while making an effective rubric. I especially liked the suggestion that you give the student only the mastery criteria at the beginning so they won’t ‘settle’ for a mediocre grade, because of lack of belief in their ability or out of sheer laziness.
The third form of assessment is self assessment. It is especially important in helping students direct their own educational goals. Strategies include checklists, journals, practicing in front of the mirror, and videotaping presentations. This seems especially useful to me for teaching students to find their own feedback to assess their progress.
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