6.3 Reflection: Assessment

• What are some of the factors you need to consider as you think about how you will implement formative and summative assessments in the online and blended environments?

Working on the unit plan for 6.2 really forced me to take a in-depth examination at how I plan my activities and what purposes these activities serve, if any.

As I start to reflect on my experience, I realize there are many factors to consider as I implement formative and summative assessments.

Here's a list that I come up with for my blended environment:

• Purpose: Why am I using this activity? What purpose does it serve? Does it support the learning objectives? Does it help students learn? If so, how?
• Set-up Time: How much time does this activity take? Is it a good use of my instructional time as well as student's homework/study time?
• Instructions: Are the instructions easy to deliver, easy to follow, and/or easy to set up? How much of my in-class instructional time will it take up for set up or for delivering instructions? Will the students be able to remember the instructions after the first two or three times or must I explain it every time? If the activity is to be done online and at home, can the students figure out how to complete the activity by following the given instructions?
• Frequency: How frequently should I have these activities?
• Turn around time: How soon can I give feedback?
• Follow up and follow through: How do I follow up with the students who needs individual help? How do I make sure students use the feedback to learn? In the blended environment, I also need to think about how this might impact my pacing.
• Variety: How many activities should I have in my tool bag so I keep the students interested?
• Fun factor: For high school students, I think "fun" should be a factor that we consider when we are designing and/or choosing activities. Not all activities will be fun, but adding in a bit of fun will help keeping the students interested. Fun can mean a lot of things, such as music, competition, or visual.
• What is being assessed and design accordingly: I also need to think about what skills or knowledge are being assessed. For example, if I am assessing reading comprehension ability, then the questions should be in English, not Chinese.
• Connection to the Real World: Since I teach a World Language, I also like to think of summative assessments that connect to the real world. One question I like to ask myself is "what other/real world skills can the students develop with this project?"
• Rubrics: In order to help students understand the expectation and to give good and usable feedback, rubrics must be set up in the beginning. 
• Sample work: I debate about whether to provide sample work. The advantage is that the students will have a clearer idea on the quality of work expected for different scores. However, it might also limit the students' creativity. 

 I wonder how different the list will be if I am delivering only through online LMS only.

It would be interesting to see what other teachers' lists and compare.