1. 1. There is a misunderstanding of how to use assessments, assignments, and comments or
feedback for your students.
2. Grades are typically used to
a. Communicate to parents how their children are achieving
b. Determine promotion, graduation, extra-curricular eligibility, and academic
program admission.
c. Provide incentives
d. Make guidance and placement decisions
3. Ways we think about grading
a. Control students
b. Reward students
c. Punish students
4. We should use assessments to help inform our instruction.
5. Assessment is more than measuring a student’s progress; it provides students feedback.
6. Two types of students
a. Performance oriented
i. Believes they are born with certain abilities
ii. There is no changing them
iii. Avoid new challenges
iv. More likely to cheat
v. Become crippled by failure and causes a hard hit to their self-esteem
b. Learning oriented
i. Incremental
ii. Can be changes through effort
iii. See failure as an opportunity to learn and not as a hit to their self-
esteem
iv. Loves new challenges and sees them as a chance to grow
v. Willing to take risks and try new things
7. Feedback commonly used
a. Pass or fail
b. Rarely use effective and positive comments to show students where they went
wrong and how to improve.
8. Effective feedback
a. Gives opportunities to learn
b. Shows relationship between objectives and what we need to get there
c. See tasks as opportunities to grow
d. Help students lean and get better at learning
9. Teachers should use every assignment, assessment, and grade as feedback.
10. Teachers should also help their students collect and analyze their own data and
understand what the grades really mean.
11. Assessment forms
a. Tests

2. b. Performance tasks
c. Oral presentation
12. Daily formal and informal assessment opportunities
a. Student-to-student interactions
b. Teacher-student interactions
c. Choral responses
d. Discussions
e. Student questions
f. Other manifestations of students understanding
13. Checking for understanding
a. One question quizzes
b. Exit cards
c. Practice exercises
d. Lab notes
e. Teacher observation
f. Homework and worksheets
14. Teachers should use a variety of assessment techniques to obtain more accurate
feedback.