The word "assessment" has begun to illicit a collective groan from staff and students alike. Many teachers say that we spend more time assessing than we do teaching. But before we label all assessments as evil, it's important that we stop and consider what the different purposes of these assessments are. We utilize many standardized summative assessments, such as WASL, ITBS, and MASI, which are all intended to provide a ranking or a number to indicate a precise level of achievement. These assessments are useful for measuring our progress as a school .
But other assessments are actually important instructional tools. The District Writing Assessment and Reading Classroom Based Assessments (CBAs) are important formative assessments that help us to discover the holes in what kids know. They tell us what to teach next. While the results of summative assessments tell us how students did, formative assessments tell us what we need to do next, on both a classroom, as well as individual level. At the junior high, we have been practicing using the results of the Reading CBAs to help us form groups and differentiate instruction according to each student's individual needs. At the high school, CBAs have been used to provide students with specific feedback on their skill levels in each of the 10 target areas.
On this month's NERD, some of the buttons you will see pertaining to Reading CBAs require a password. This password changes each year. The password can be viewed by looking on the intranet under "Links to Outside Web Sites". Click on the link to the ESD - CBA Cooperative web-site for the password to enter the site.
