Assessment Philosophy

Assessment is a necessary tool for a reflective teacher. I believe that in order for a
teacher to be effective, they must reflect on how they are teaching and how their students
are learning. To do this a teacher must continually assess the progress of their students.
The teacher will be able to understand if they are teaching the subject matter effectively
and if the students need remediation. I believe that the assessments given to the students
should not be a matter of finding out how much of a topic a student understands. A teacher
should strive for all of the students in their care to understand all of the necessary material.
In order to achieve this, I will use an exam as a ticket to the next topic. If they have not
acquired the necessary knowledge, they must continue to practice it until they know it.
Until that time, they have not passed the test. They will have unlimited opportunities to
demonstrate proficiency in all of the necessary areas. These high expectations will
hopefully motivate students to spend the time necessary to learn the material completely
instead of settling for mediocrity. To aid in this goal there will be a wide variety of
assessment techniques used in the classroom including:

 Informal Thumbs up Thumbs down for understanding

 Exit Tickets
 Drawing random names for answers
 Whiteboard surveys
 At The Bell (ATB) start up activities
 Projects
 Written assignments
 Quizzes
 Exams
 Presentations
 Journaling
 Classroom discussions