Levi Hawes

4/16/17
Philosophy of Assessing Student Learning

I believe that assessment is a critical step in the learning process. It helps

determine whether what is being taught helps meet the courses learning objectives.
It also helps students recognize their progress towards course goals and to modify
their behavior so they can achieve those goals. I also believe that it is important to
assess students and their progress continually to track said progress and make the
necessary behavioral changes that will help them achieve their goals.

There are various ways to assess progress in education. Formative

assessment is considered the heart of assessment and it is used continually to
monitor learning progress. It provides feedback to the teacher and student to help
identify strengths and weaknesses. Examples of formative assessment are pretests,
homework and classroom assignments, group discussions, and student self-
evaluations. Summative assessments are typically used at the end of units to
assess whether learning goals were met. Examples of these could be end of unit
projects, a written piece, an oral presentation, or a unit test.

In my own classroom, I believe it will be important to use both formative

assessments and summative assessments. As an English teacher, it will be
important to continually monitor progress of students when it comes to their writing
ability as well as tracking understanding and participation when reading novels. To
do this I will have homework assignments that are associated to each to help keep
students on track during each unit. Then at the conclusion of each unit, it will be
important to assess whether learning has taken place by having unit tests as well as
writing projects.