Summative+assessment

Summative assessment is as important as diagnostic assessment and formative assessment (Hongyan Li) As we have learned that diagnostic assessment and formative assessment should play the more fundamental role in the process of assessing students’ knowledge, ability, and potential. Diagnostic assessment is essential in knowing our students and planning or adjusting our instructional plans. Formative assessment is critical in supporting students’ learning. However, to have the un-skewed assessment for each of our students we will also need summative assessment. We should be clear that all three of the Diagnostic assessment, Formative assessment, and Summative assessment must be applied so as to have the complete performance assessment. Reeves pointed out that “authentic or performance-based assessment instruments yield more accurate results with English language learners than traditional assessments, regardless of whether they are used to collect summative data (for a status report) or formative data (to affect learning).” (Reeves. 2007. P.153). In alignment with Pennsylvania English Language Proficiency Standards and support students’ learning to achieve the desired results, I will try to implement performance assessment scheme in the following steps: 1) I will start the learning unit by asking students to give me some words (Diagnostic assessment) and introducing necessary words; 2) I will use display board, DVD, and/or TV to create excitements. In the meantime, I will make sure everyone is on track and help those “who are not” to engage the classroom activities (performance or formative assessment); 3) I will have students to talk aloud and make sure no one can hide under the desk (performance or formative assessment); 4) I will ask students to put up a show to exhibit their work. From the exhibitions, students will have the chances to reflect, self-evaluate, and learn from others. I will ask students to compare and contrast how differently they use the vocabulary and sentences to describe the same. Some short quizzes are always handy to give me the hints about how well my students have been following me (combination of performance or formative and summative assessment); 5) To ensure my students will have good performances in the summative assessment, I will make any necessary adjustments on my instructional plan based on students’ classroom performance assessment and pre-summative assessment results from quizzes. I will ensure my students will get my positive feedback and attentions (Diagnostic assessment of my own instructional plan for the better performance or formative and summative assessment of my students).   I n summary, it is important for teachers to understand that to m atch learning goals we need to conduct the all three assessment: diagnostic assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment. Once again, let’s also remember that: “We must constantly remind ourselves that the ultimate purpose of evaluation is to have students learn to become self-evaluative…if students graduate from our schools dependent on others without an understanding of what is good, adequate, or excellent work, then we have failed them” (Costa and Kallick. 2004. p. 3).