Meet Me in the Middle - Chapter 8: Effective Assessment

I like that the beginning of this chapter states that “assessment should promote learning, not just measure it”. Students should be excited about their assessment, or at the least be interested in it. Students may understand something very well, but may have a hard time conveying their understanding in certain ways. It is mentioned that involving students in their assessment is a good route to take. The chapter then lists the characteristics of good assessment which are: defining clear goals, rigorous and motivating, focusing on essential knowledge, using multiple disciplines, valid indicator of students’ knowledge, source of reliable information,using vigorous formats, and easy to grade. This list of characteristics shows that assessment is all about the specific student and how they learn.

I find this chapter similar to differentiated instruction, and I’m sure that’s why they are situated in the book one after the other. Assessment should reflect the initial instruction. If we are tailor our lessons to meet the needs of all students in our classroom then our assessments need to be tailored in the same manner. I really enjoyed the story at the beginning of this chapter. I think it is really great to see that a student really enjoys creating musics and being able to utilize this talent in music to assess the student. His assessment may have not been as straight forward as everyone else's but he provided all information needed in order to show that he understands the novel and it’s different elements.