All educators across the country would have experienced the quick fire succession of student assessment in the first four to six weeks of school. I marked 23 E Asttle writing tests, completed 23 GLOSS tests, 23 + Probe reading assessments, marked 23 STAR tests, and administered 1 spelling and PAT maths test.
Assessments are time consuming to administer and evaluate however the most invaluable feature of assessments are the identification of strengths, needs and the next learning steps. Our school administers the PAT maths test and this assessment was a treasure chest of wealth about what mathematical knowledge my learners had and needed. I have used this test to create specific learning intentions for my groups and individuals. Using this information, I quickly identified that one student needed to work on her number knowledge, specifically how many 10’s in a whole number. She was completely flabbergasted when we started and now takes great delight in explaining to her peers how she worked out how many 10’s in said number.
The most interesting feature was that some of the information derived from the test , for example one student could not successfully solve an addition problem involving decimals and stumbled on this during the GLOSS test as well. However, in some areas this did not ring true. Thus, the importance of a variety of testing and overall teacher judgement.
So, as much as testing takes a lot of time to administer, mark and analyse, they really provide us and our learners with a springboard for learning.
Be The Teacher 