What are some new techniques you learned about today for assessments? Why should we have formative assessments as well as summative assessments?
According to what I have understood, a performance-based assessment requires the student to demonstrate and apply what they have learned in the environment of the foreign language classroom and –hopefully– beyond that environment.
The teacher assesses each student while they are completing a task without students even knowing they are being assessed. I like this approach to assess students because, typically, the sentence “let’s have an exam” raises everyone’s affective filter.
If we have students perform tasks while we are individually assessing them with a checklist, they will be assessed without even realizing that they are being assessed. For example, we can teach students how to introduce themselves in Spanish: “Como te llamas?” “Anderson.” “Mucho gusto.” From there, we can ask students to stand up and introduce themselves to one another. While they are using the target language to introduce themselves, we can walk around the classroom and assess each student’s understanding with a checklist. Of course, this does not mean that we, as teachers, have to underestimate the importance of more formal assessments. We need formative assessments (for example, a performance-based assessment in the classroom) and a summative assessment (for example, a composition or an exam). But even while having students perform a summative assessment, we, as teachers, can facilitate their learning by providing them with a rubric that tells them how they are being assessed and what they have to do to get a good grade.
While teaching at the University of Washington, I gave each of my students the exact rubric that I used to assess their compositions. My students, therefore, knew how they were being assessed and what they were expected to do to get an A+.
The two types of assessments discussed in this reflection are linked to the idea of having a learner-centered classroom. In a learner-centered classroom, students talk more than the teacher does (for example, while delivering a performance-based assessment) and also, as learners, they are given the opportunity to assess themselves and their own knowledge.