Blog 2

1.  Informal versus Formal Assessment
An informal assessment is something that would most likely take place at the beginning of a new section of the class.  This could take place in the form of a brief discussion and provide a starting point for both the teacher and the class.  After identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the class from the informal assessment, I would move on to the formal assessment at the end of each section.  The students who did not perform very well in the informal assessment will have time to improve in order to succeed on the formal assessment.  These two assessment types would also help me, as the teacher, find areas of improvement in my lesson plans.

2.  Paper-Pencil versus Performance Assessment
For a paper-pencil assessment I would most commonly assign homework and worksheets for the students to complete on their own.  As a future history teacher, using worksheets with maps or short-answer essay questions are going to help the students put things in historical context.  For a performance assessment, I believe a neat project would be to assign each student to a past American President and have them recite a clip of that president's farewell address and then explain to the class what it all means in modern day English.  This would demonstrate how much American foreign policy has changed over the course of our history.  I believe this would help the students learn how the U.S. came to be a superpower and how we conduct ourselves worldwide. Not only foreign policy but also taking a step back in time to see how a president wanted his successor to guide the nation.  This is only one of many possible ideas I could use to have some fun in my history classes.

3.  Traditional versus Authentic Assessment
Traditional assessments are concrete/old school methods of assessing a student's progress in the class.  These obviously consist of quizzes/tests/papers.  Authentic assessments measure a students' knowledge and skills in real world situations in a way that build upon traditional methods.  I think a fun authentic task would be a political debate in a U.S. Government class.  I remember in high school we were all assigned hot topic political issues and one team was "for it" and the other was "against it."  The students who weren't debating that day wrote down which team they think won on a sheet of paper and handed it to the teacher.  It got us out of taking an optional written test and also taught us about collaborative learning along with some friendly competition!!  These sorts of group tasks develop social skills that will help them succeed outside the classroom in the real world.

4.  Standardized Tests versus Teacher-Developed Assessments
Standardized tests are tests that we are all too familiar with.  These include TCAP, SAT, ACT, just to name a few.  These are statewide tests that assess a students' general achievement and ability levels.  As a  teacher, it would be my job to help the students excel on the social studies part of the test as well as helping with text anxiety in general.  Teacher-developed assessments help gauge how a student performs related to a specific instructional objective.  I believe the best way to learn in history/social studies is through written exams and papers.  So for my own assessments, I would give them several topics to write about on a test and let them choose one.

5.  Criterion-Referenced versus Norm-Referenced Assessments
For a criterion-referenced assessment, one easy way is by giving a T/F and multiple choice test with questions and statements relating to American people, dates, key events, and so on.  With this test, I would know what area of the curriculum needs improvement.  For a norm-referenced assessment, the students could take a general social studies test to determine how students differ from class to class and maybe even school system to school system.