meganslattery_journal+entry+2

Assessment Journal #2 Today in the first grade classroom I observe in, the students had a performance-based assessment. A performance assessment, also known as alternative or authentic assessment, is a form of testing that requires students to perform a task rather than select an answer from a ready-made list. The students keep track of how many days they have been in school daily since the beginning of the year. Today marked the hundredth day in school, and the students were told to bring in 100 different items, for a counting assignment. Some of the things that the students brought in for this activity were beads, paper clips, puzzle pieces, cheerios, beans etc. The students were told to sort their counting objects into groups that totaled 100. The students have been learning to count and group off objects such as by two’s, five's, ten's, twenty's, etc. They had to have enough groups to total 100, and explain to the class what they chose to group by and then count off by what they chose, to show their knowledge of grouping to 100. The students walked around to each table as a whole and were able to see and learn how their peers decided to group off their own items. Every morning prior to today the students count off how many days they have been in school by two’s, five’s, ten’s, and so on, as a whole class. Therefore, today was their chance to decide on their own what they wanted to group their own items by to equal 100. I noticed some of the students struggled with this, not understanding how many groups to make to have 100 items.

This type of assessment is effective because it requires students to actively demonstrate what they know, and is a valid indicator of students’ knowledge and abilities. Normally, the class counts off as a whole but today they were on their own. The students also had to explain how they came to what they ended up grouping their items into, and how it totals 100. This type of assessment shows active learning and was an extended task. The students only used to count up to 100, but now they will be challenged to count above 100 daily, so this assessment showed my teacher who may struggle in the future. If I were to do this assessment differently, I might have had the students group their items by a specific group (ex. every four at a table group off items in a different way) because what I found walking around, many of the students were grouping off by whatever the other members of the table were, because it was easier to follow what they were doing.

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