October 2016, Vol. 23, Issue 3
Assessing Student Understanding: A Framework for Testing and Teaching
Jonathan L. Brendefur, Sam Strother, Kelli Rich, and Sarah Appleton
Via vignettes, look inside first- and fourth-grade classrooms where teachers demonstrate how to use a research-based structure during instruction to choose tasks that elicit different levels of comprehension.
What is assessment? To many noneducators, the term is synonymous with “test” or “quiz.” However, teachers use the word to describe any method of gathering information about student learning. Whether it be formative assessment (intended to guide instructional decisions) or summative assessment (a reflection on the entirety of student learning from prior instruction), teachers are constantly working to identify what their students know and how deeply they understand what they are learning.
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