What are the ways of assessment in learning?

What are the benefits and drawbacks of

each?

1. Diagnostic Assessment (as Pre-Assessment)

One way to think about it: Assesses a student’s strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, and
skills prior to instruction

Another way to think about it: A baseline to work from

Tip: Done at the beginning–of the school year, beginning of a unit, beginning of a lesson,
etc.

2. Formative Assessment

One way to think about it: Assesses a student’s performance during instruction, and
usually occurs regularly throughout the instruction process

Another way to think about it: Like a doctor’s ‘check-up’ to provide data to revise
instruction

Tip: Using digital exit ticket tools like Loop can be an easy means of checking whether
students have understood lesson content, while also promoting student reflection.

3. Summative Assessment

One way to think about it: Measures a student’s achievement at the end of instruction.
It’s like talking to someone about a movie after the movie is over. : )

Another way to think about it: It’s macabre, but if formative assessment is the check-up,
you might think of summative assessment as the autopsy. What happened? Now that it’s
all over, what went right and what went wrong?

Tip: By using measurements of student performance, summative assessments can be

useful for teachers to improve units and lessons year over year because they are, in a
way, as much of a reflection on the quality of the units and lessons themselves as they
are the students.

4. Norm-Referenced Assessment

One way to think about it: Compares a student’s performance against other students (a
national group or other ‘norm’)
Another way to think about it: Place, group or ‘demographic’ assessment. Many
standardized tests are used as norm-referenced assessments.

Tip: These kinds of assessments are useful over time in student profiles or for placement
in national-level programs, for example.

5. Criterion-Referenced Assessment

One way to think about it: Measures a student’s performance against a goal, specific
objective, or standard

Another way to think about it: a bar to measure all students against

Tip: These can be a kind of formative assessment and should be integrated throughout
your curriculum to guide the adjustment of your teaching over time. Mastery or
competency-based learning would use criterion-referenced assessments.

6. Interim/Benchmark Assessment

One way to think about it: Evaluates student performance at periodic intervals, frequently
at the end of a grading period. Can predict student performance on end-of-the-year
summative assessments. A benchmark assessment is a type of interim assessment so it
could be useful to think of them as distinct even though they function in a similar way.

Another way to think about it: Bar graph or chart growth throughout a year, often against
specific ‘benchmarks’

Tip: Benchmark assessments can be useful for communicating important facts and data
to parents, district officials, and others to, among other goals, inform the allotment of
resources (time and money) to respond to that data