Diagnostic+or+pre-assessments

  Diagnostic and Formative Assessment    (Hongyan Li) From my personal experience, summative assessment has been more pronounced than its counterpart, diagnostic assessment and formative assessment. I think the main reason is that teachers can conveniently rely on the test results to build the statistically recordable portfolio for each student. However, from years of studying and filed practices, researchers and teachers have realized that summative assessment does not necessarily promote the positive “want-to-learn” classroom environment. Practically, it has been unarguably suggested that to have the accurate assessment so as to support learning in additional to measure learning, assessment should take three steps in such an order: starting with diagnostic assessment to know who and what we are going to deal with, then conducting the ongoing formative assessment to see where students are going against our instructional plans and making any necessary changes and/or justifications to ensure that students are going where we want them to go, and finally formulating a summative assessment to evaluate how good is our teaching and make a judgment on how much students have learned as well.

The ongoing assessment starts with knowing who is coming to our classroom. This actually is the diagnostic assessment categorized by McTighe. (McTighe. 2005). As an ESL teacher and an immigrant as well, I fully understand what kinds of obstacles my ESL students have to face. I understand that the majority of my ESL students want to “melt” into the “American Pot” so as to have the better lives than that of their parents’. However, this does not mean that I have the accurate image or assessment about my students. When my students walk into my classroom for the first time, they probably have all sorts of things in their minds. It might be something happened in their families, their neighborhoods, on the streets. It might be something interesting they learned or read last night. It might be that they think that they just have to come. Now, they are in my classroom. How can I get the basic but more or less accurate images or the first impressions of my students? I will apply the informal discussion strategy or technique to comply the diagnostic assessment or pre-assessment. The informal session is to have students and I discuss why we are here at the beginning of my class. I will start with talking about the high expectations that I have to everyone of them. I want them to understand why they need and should learn, not just they have to learn. I want every one of them to understand that we are in this together. We will strive for the better future together. I believe that the best way to promote “want to” is to encourage them to have a dream, many dreams, big and wild dreams. I will ask my students to talk about their dreams. What they want to do or become when they grow up? From this kind of activities, I will get a good idea about my students, who is “eager to learn”, who is “want to learn”, who is “have to learn”, who is “believe he/she has learned enough and will not learn no matter what”.

In summary, diagnostic assessment is essential in knowing our students and planning or adjusting instructional plan and formative assessment is critical in supporting students’ learning. However, this does not necessarily mean that we do not need summative assessment any more. To have the un-skewed assessment for each of our students by creating a photo album with the 100% sure right pictures in this photo album, we will need applying all three assessment techniques. I absolutely agree with Anne Davies (Reeves. 2007. pp. 35) that classroom assessment must be supported by four cornerstones. Formative assessment, feedback, motivation, and summative evaluation are the four cornerstones that provide the foundation for thoughtfully and deliberately involving students in the classroom assessment process.