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Assessment Framing Statement

Sierra Afoa

Department of Education, University of Alaska Southeast

ED 698: Master’s Portfolio

Dr. Beth Hartley

April 24, 2024

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Assessment
The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in
their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learner’s
decision making.
Assessments play a major role in guiding both learning and instruction. Teachers utilize

assessments to gauge students’ understanding of the lessons and to determine what needs to be

retaught and what lessons classes can move on from. Students have the ability to utilize

assessments to better understand what information they know and what they may need more

guidance with. One way that I have been able to dive deep into assessments to better understand

how to use them in a meaningful way is through my Teacher Work Sample (TWS) assessment

plan during my student teaching. For the TWS, I created two goals for the class I was student

teaching in. The goals were for students to be able to retell a story and have the ability to write

and draw about their family. From these goals I was able to create assessments that best showed

students’ knowledge while also meeting different learning styles. The assessments I used were a

sequencing worksheet to retell a story, the use of drawing for both retelling and discussing

family, and journal writing for students to give specific details about their families. This artifact

supported my learning of the process of creating my own assessments. Through creating my own

assessments, I found that it is extremely important to build them based off of what I want

students to know or be able to do. I also found it to be important to create assessments that met

the different learning styles of all of my students in order to provide more than one opportunity

for students to demonstrate their learning. Through the use of assessments both teachers and

students are able to gain insight on individual learning journeys and what steps need to be taken

next.

Teachers are assessing daily whether they realize it or not. We are assessing if our

students are understanding what we are saying through asking questions during lessons, we
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utilize different activities to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge, and

we give individual assessments to really see what each student knows. Scriven (1967) coined the

terms “formative” and “summative” evaluations that guide teachers today. Formative evaluations

are ongoing evaluations that help teachers understand what students know and what they need

more support with. These evaluations help to guide instruction daily. Summative evaluations are

used less frequently and aim to determine if students have mastered the material that was taught

throughout a unit of study.

In my TWS I utilized formative assessments such as a sequencing worksheet to check for

student understanding in the middle of teaching the unit. This helped me to support the student

needs of that particular class and assess whether or not students were making progress towards

their goals. One way that I have used formative assessments in my current classroom is through

whiteboards. I utilize whiteboards a lot in the kindergarten classroom because the students get

excited about them, and it helps me better understand who is needing more support in certain

areas. An example of this is when we are reviewing letter names and sounds. I will say a letter

sound or name and the students have to write the letter on their whiteboard and then hide it by

holding it to their belly until all students have written their answer. I will then ask students to

hold up their board to show me the answer. During this time, I am making quick notes about

which letters students are struggling with and if there are any students who are consistently

getting the answer wrong. This helps me to see if there is a letter that the whole class needs to

revisit or if there is a small group of students I need to pull to provide more instruction to.

Summative assessments, while important, are used less frequently than formative

assessments. One example of a summative assessment I have used in my teaching is through an

end of unit test. I taught a unit on farms this year and the students were learning about different
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crops and farm animals. For the end of unit test, students were given a multiple-choice test with

each question having three pictures to choose from. I would ask the students a question and they

would have to circle to picture that they thought best answered the question. From this test I was

able to determine that students really understood what they had learned about farm animals, but

some of the class really struggled with different crops. I was able to evaluate the students’

knowledge and also my own teaching with the use of the summative assessment.

A different way that I have been developing assessments this year came from the

Professional Learning Communities (PLC) time teachers in Anchorage have been given every

Monday morning. During this time teachers meet in small groups based on grade level to discuss

where students are currently at and where we would like them to be. In determining where we

would like our students to be by the end of the year, we needed to look into the learning

standards set by the state and figure out which what those standards meant for our students. Tyler

(1936) described the importance of first understanding educational objectives before exploring

the methods in which we determine students have met those objectives. For our school and our

students, we decided the most important learning objective was the ability to name letter names

and sounds fluently. From there we needed to dive deeper into what that meant specifically. In

the end, we decided that our students would be able to give 26 letter names and sounds by the

end of the school year. In my TWS I also began with the state standards and created two learning

goals for my students based off of the standards of retelling and providing details in writing and

drawing. Starting with the learning goals and building the assessments from there have helped in

making sure the assessments I use in my classroom have a purpose and aid in guiding

instruction.
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Students also have the ability to assess themselves to better understand what they already

know and where they are headed next in their learning journey. The self-determination theory

(Deci & Ryan, 2000) lays out three basic needs all people have that drive motivation. These

needs are competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Autonomy is about the need to feel in control

of one’s own life and goals. In the educational setting, this can be used to motivate students to

assess themselves and assess whether or not they have met their learning goals. One way to do

this could be through students reflecting on their learning in a journal. This gives students the

opportunity to reflect on their own knowledge and provide insight as to how they can improve

their own knowledge. This gives students the autonomy they are looking for because it is not

someone else telling them what they need to do, but it is giving them the freedom to determine

the next steps for themselves.

As a kindergarten teacher, is can be difficult to find ways to assess students that both

meets their learning style while assessing knowledge at the same time. Something that I would

like to incorporate more into my teaching and assessment strategies is assessing my students

while they are engaged in play. Assessing students while they are playing utilizes that self-

determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) where students feel connection and belonging with

their peers, they are given the choice of what they are going to do during this time, and they have

the competence to control their environment more. Through the use of anecdotal notes about

what and how students are engaging in play I am able to learn more about each individual

student and their background knowledge. “When children are able to choose where they play,

they tend to pick areas where they feel safe and experience some confidence” (Blessing, 2019,

p.9). This means when students are in a place where they feel safe and confident, they are given

more of an opportunity to showcase what they know. An example of this would be a student who
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struggles to verbally retell a story during a lesson but is able to retell a story using dolls and

acting it out during play time. That student may not feel confident in their ability to express

themselves through words but gains confidence when they can utilize other objects to relay their

knowledge. Students need to be given the chance to demonstrate understanding in a way that best

fits their learning style and it is the responsibility of the teacher to provide students with the

means necessary to do so.

Through this reflection on my assessment and evaluation practices I was reminded that I

need to do a better job at reflecting on the assessments used in my classroom. Many of the

assessments I have given this year are built into the curriculum I am required to teach. Both the

formative and summative assessments for the curriculum are already created and given to me. If

I do not question the assessments, I am giving my students, how will I really know if they are

meeting the learning goals that I want them to meet? Scriven (1979) states, “formative is, after

all, what you have to rest the improvement on. If it isn’t solid, you are going to take the wrong

turn” (p. 69). It is important to know what you are assessing and what assessments you utilize to

determine understanding. If the assessment is not measuring the desired outcome, it may lead to

missed opportunities to provide the proper instruction. I would also like to improve on the

opportunities I give students to reflect on their own work and learning. In my TWS I created

assessments that clearly assessed the learning goals. Students were able to show their ideas and

thinking in multiple ways. What I did not do was give students the opportunity to reflect on

themselves. I could have met with each student individually to discuss more of their work as a

way to give them a chance to reflect. As a teacher, my goal is to do a better job of paying closer

attention to the tools I am using to assess my students, guide instruction, and support self-

reflection.
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Overall, assessments have the ability to support all students whether they are

understanding what is being taught or there are things they still need more support with.

Assessments also provide teachers with valuable information about their students and their own

teaching practices. Monitoring the progress students make and discovering what growth occurs

throughout the year helps both teachers and students better determine what steps need to be taken

next. Successful utilization of assessments aids in creating lifelong learners who are able to

engage in self-reflection to continuously work towards their own goals.

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Resources

Blessing, A. D. (2019). Assessment in kindergarten: Meeting children where they are. YC Young

Children, 74(3), 6-13. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26788996

Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic

motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-

78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68

Scriven, M. (1967). The methodology of evaluation. American Educational Research

Association.

Scriven, M. (1979). Michael Scriven: Viewpoints on education evaluation, Educational

Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 1(2), 66-72. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1163901

Tyler, R. (1936). Defining and measuring objectives of progressive education. Educational

Research Bulletin, 15(3), 67-72. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1470049