Assessment Philosophy - Mrs. Sara Jans
Assessment is all about gathering information about our students' learning. When we think about assessment we think about tests, but assessment can be so much more than that. A well balanced assessment plan may include checklists, performance assessments, tests, interviews and anecdotal records kept by the teacher.
It is widely understood that there are two types of assessments that are used to collect information about learning. They are formative assessment and summative assessment. You may or may not have heard these terms somewhere along the way in your child's schooling, but this year these two ideas will be at the forefront of my assessment plan.
What is formative assessment? Formative assessments are the activities and challenges that "form" the students learning. Think of it as a practice or training session. These are the small ways that I will check to see if your child understands the skills and ideas in the topics that we are studying. I will use the information from these activities to shape the way that I approach future lessons, deciding if the class is ready to move on to a new skill or if review and re-teaching are necessary. Formative assessments are not formally graded. They are given a letter grade such as E for excellent; this would mean that your child has mastered this skill and they are ready to move on to the next task. S for satisfactory would mean that they have a basic understanding of the skill or topic, but that steps could be taken to deepen understanding or increase skill level. NS, or not sufficient means that more time needs to be spent mastering the skills or understanding the content.
The marks on formative assessments do not count towards the final grade, however, completing all of the formative assessment tasks in a project will allow the student the opportunity to re-do a final project to improve a grade. Any missing formative assessment or marks of NS will disqualify a student from taking advantage of a re-do. Also, bonus marks (2 per term) will be given to students who achieve a mark of E on all formative assessment tasks related to a project. Formative assessments are meant to help students learn the task and improve their skills before they are graded on it.
Summative assessments are meant to be used as a final measure that shows a clear picture of what the student knows about a topic. These types of assessments are usually given at the end of a unit before moving on to new content. In my classroom, summative assessments may take several forms including tests, projects, essay or presentations etc.
If you have any questions about your child's progress or marks, please feel free to contact me by phone, 527-8571 (ext 3313) or by e-mail: