Week 4

In chapter 4, the primary focus was on sound design of assessment.  One point made in this chapter was, regardless of the exact assessments you have completed as a student or even given as a teacher, they all fall within four categories.  Those categories are as follows:  selected response, written response, performance assessment, and personal communication.  Each of these have different types of assessments within that category.  Selected response are typically multiple choice tests or true/false questions.  Written responses could be short answer or extended responses.  The performance assessments require students to perform some type of task to show what they know.  Personal communication would be things like student journals or conferences with students.  What is most important about these different categories is that the assessments that go along with them are chosen appropriately.  The methods should match the learning targets established in the beginning.  If the formative assessment does not match what was being taught along the way, validity of the assessment becomes an issue.  This is basically saying that if the test does not match what was being taught over the course of time, the results cannot be valid.  A test blueprint was discussed in this chapter as a way of preventing this from happening. 
This week's chapter related back to previous readings because sound design is an important part of assessing just like clear targets and purpose.  The clear targets that we focused on last week are a key component of sound design.  These targets should be laid out and guide teaching so that assessment will be effective throughout learning as well as at the end. 
I enjoyed reading about sound design this week, but I did have to go back and reread several sections to gain a better understanding.  I realized that regardless of the specific assessments we use as teachers, they really all fall under four categories.  Those four categories, as mentioned earlier, are written response, selected response, performance assessments, and personal communication.  In my classroom, I use performance assessments and personal communication the most.  I find it difficult to use very much selected response in kindergarten until the very end.  I feel that this type of assessment is appropriate for reading comprehension sometimes.  In kindergarten, it is easier to have students show what they know through completing a performance task.  Sometimes this means role play.  Along with this, personal communication is effective in my classroom especially through student journals.  I use writing journals and math journals to have students express thoughts and communicate their thinking.  This shows what they know and, through student conferences, I am able to assess them along the way.  Reading chapter four has made me consider others way to use written response and selected response assessment.  I understand that all four are important and should match the learning targets.  I plan to use the blueprint discussed in chapter 4 to determine how I can better align my assessments with my learning targets.