This document discusses assessment and evaluation as tools for teaching and learning. It defines assessment as evaluating how well students are learning and how effectively teachers are teaching. The purpose of assessment should be to promote meaningful learning by providing feedback and guiding instruction. A variety of assessment methods are listed, from daily assignments to projects and portfolios. The document stresses that assessment requires subjective teacher judgments and should focus on important learning objectives rather than just easy-to-measure content. Effective assessment involves students in self-evaluation to take responsibility for their own learning.

1. Assessment and Evaluation
A Tool for Teaching and Learning
Dr. Melinda Butler
Lewis Clark State College
PACE Program

2. Assessment
What Words come to mind
when you hear this word?

3. Why Assess Students?
 The fundamental purpose of
any assessment of students
should be to promote
meaningful learning.
 Bottom line
Help Kids Learn Better

4. Don’t Loose Sight Of The Fact
Feedback is
only a
PART of
the reason
for student
assessment

5. It Also Relates To
 How well we
have
TAUGHT

6.  How well the student the
student has learned and can
perform
 What STILL needs attention

7. Evaluation
Guides and Improves
Teaching and Learning

8. Evaluation Tools
 Daily Assignments  Journals
 Quizzes  Writing
 Objective Tests Stories, Reports, other
 Essay Tests  Games
 Individual Projects
 Discussion
 Simulation
 Group/Collaborative
Projects  Problem-solving
 Teacher Observation  Dramatic Activities
 Self-Assessment
 Service Projects
 Portfolio

9. Assessment is never easy
 Many decisions must be made
 Both Objective and Subjective
 Teachers have to make difficult arbitrary
decisions which most likely will be
– Questioned and Debated

10. Ways To Help
Things To Consider
 Base Assessment on Teaching Objectives
 Assess what you teach, not what you
should teach. Both teaching and
assessment should reflect what we want
learning as outcomes

11.  Focus on what is important rather than on
what is easy to measure
 Ongoing Assessment is preferable to
endpoint
– Incorporate evaluation into regular
activities

12.  Assessment of teaching should be based on
what students learn rather than on what
they already know and can do
– We need to find out what they already know
BEFORE we teach - Pre Assessment
 Give students a clear understanding of the
reasons for assessment, they will perform
better.
 Assessment procedures should be built
around the notion of finding ways of
improving instruction.

13. Effective assessment…
 Getsthe student involved in Self
Evaluation, thinking about how he
or she can do better, and taking
responsibility for his/her own
learning.

14. “A Teacher should always
remember that assessment is
at the very best, a subjective
and risky affair!”
Thomas Turner
University of Tennessee

15. How DO We Measure Learning?
 Informal Assessment
– Spontaneous evaluation to
gauge student
understanding.
– Questioning,Discussions
 Formal Assessment
– Planned evaluation based
on learning objectives
– Rubrics, Tests

16. Authentic Assessment
 Elicits Higher Order Thinking
 Provides Real World Connections
 Criterion Referenced
 Performance Based
 Now It’s YOUR TURN to explore.
Download the Scavenger Hunt Guidesheet
and follow the directions