Assessment in the classroom: how it improves learning

Assessments check whether your goals meet the instructional needs. Assessments in the classroom are
something necessary, because a lot of teachers partially develop their own instruction. In this article we'll talk
about the importance of assessments in the classroom and how they can improve learning.Pre-assessment or
diagnostic assessment
Before creating the instruction, it’s necessary to know for what kind of students you’re creating the instruction.
Your goal is to get to know your student’s strengths, weaknesses and the skills and knowledge the posses before
taking the instruction. Based on the data you’ve collected, you can create your instruction.

Importance of assessment in the classroom

“Improving” is a key element when talking about assessment in the classroom. Assessment is important for the
development of your instruction. However, teachers often use assessments the wrong way. Assessments are
about improving and with that said, it’s not the same as an evaluation. An evaluation is about showing the
shortfalls and is judgmental while an assessment is about providing feedback and it is positive. Read more about
the differences between assessment and evaluation.

You have been studying for a whole week to pass your exam. When you’re taking the exam, it examines
something way different than you’ve had been learning. This shows that instruction hasn’t met its goals. When
a problem like this occurs after you’ve taken the assessment, it’s time to solve this problem. Assessing is an
ongoing process during your instruction.

When a classroom assessment has taken place, students won’t be surprised anymore, because the instruction
is meeting their needs. Teaching and learning must be meaningful and meet the needs of the particular
communities of students.

Types of assessment tools in the classroom

There are different kinds of assessment. The most popular kinds of assessment are formative and summative
assessment.

Formative assessment takes place during the beginning of your instruction. It gives the creator feedback of the
strengths and weaknesses of your instruction, so you know where to improve more. Summative assessment
takes place when the instruction is implemented. Summative assessment is aimed at assessing the extent to
which the most important outcomes at the end of the instruction have been reached.

Conclusion
Assessment in classroom is really important. With the different kinds of assessment, the teacher is able to
evaluate in an ongoing process with the aim to provide feedback for developing better instruction.

Type of Assessment
Formative assessment
Formative assessment is used in the first attempt of developing instruction. The goal is to monitor student
learning to provide feedback. It helps identifying the first gaps in your instruction. Based on this feedback you’ll
know what to focus on for further expansion for your instruction.

Summative assessment
Summative assessment is aimed at assessing the extent to which the most important outcomes at the end of
the instruction have been reached. But it measures more: the effectiveness of learning, reactions on the
instruction and the benefits on a long-term base. The long-term benefits can be determined by following students
who attend your course, or test. You are able to see whether and how they use the learned knowledge, skills
and attitudes.

Read more about formative and summative assessments.

Confirmative assessment
When your instruction has been implemented in your classroom, it’s still necessary to take assessment. Your
goal with confirmative assessments is to find out if the instruction is still a success after a year, for example, and
if the way you're teaching is still on point. You could say that a confirmative assessment is an extensive form of
a summative assessment.

Norm-referenced assessment
This compares a student’s performance against an average norm. This could be the average national norm for
the subject History, for example. Other example is when the teacher compares the average grade of his or her
students against the average grade of the entire school.

Criterion-referenced assessment
It measures student’s performances against a fixed set of predetermined criteria or learning standards. It checks
what students are expected to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their education. Criterion-referenced
tests are used to evaluate a specific body of knowledge or skill set, it’s a test to evaluate the curriculum taught
in a course.

Ipsative assessment
It measures the performance of a student against previous performances from that student. With this method
you’re trying to improve yourself by comparing previous results. You’re not comparing yourself against other
students, which may be not so good for your self-confidence.

Assessment vs Testing: what's the difference?

Assessment and testing are often used interchangeably. What’s the difference between assessment and testing
in education? When developing instruction, it’s important to know what the difference is between assessment
and testing.
What is an assessment?
Assessment is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on the knowledge, skills,
attitudes and beliefs. By taking the assessment, teachers try to improve student learning. This is a short definition
of assessment.If you want to read more about assessment, click on this link.
What is testing?
What is testing in education? Almost everybody has experienced testing during his or her life. Grammar tests,
driving license test etc. A test is used to examine someone’s knowledge of something to determine what that
person knows or has learned. It measures the level of skill or knowledge that has been reached. An evaluative
device or procedure in which a sample of an examinee’s behavior in a specified domain is obtained and
subsequently evaluated and scored using a standardized process (The Standards for Educational and
Psychological Testing, 1999)

So, what’s the difference?

Test and assessment are used interchangeably, but they do mean something different. A test is a “product” that
measures a particular behavior or set of objectives. Meanwhile assessment is seen as a procedure instead of a
product. Assessment is used during and after the instruction has taken place. After you’ve received the results
of your assessment, you can interpret the results and in case needed alter the instruction. Tests are done after
the instruction has taken place, it’s a way to complete the instruction and get the results. The results of the tests
don’t have to be interpreted, unlike assessment.

Assessment vs Evaluation: what's the difference?

Assessment and evaluation are not the same. But, what are the differences between an assessment and
evaluation in education. This article will describe both of these terms and outline the differences between them.

What is an assessment?
What's the definition of assessment in education? Assessment is the systematic process of documenting and
using empirical data to measure knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. By taking the assessment, teachers try
to improve the student's path towards learning. This is a short definition of assessment. If you want to read more
about assessment, click on this link.

What is evaluation?
What's the definition of evaluation in education? Evaluation focuses on grades and might reflect classroom
components other than course content and mastery level. An evaluation can be used as a final review to gauge
the quality of instruction. It’s product-oriented. This means that the main question is: “What’s been learned?” In
short, evaluation is judgmental.

Example:
You’re gifted a flower.

Evaluation: “The flower is purple and is too short with not enough leaves.”
Evaluation is judgmental

Assessment: “I’ll give the flower some water to improve its growth.”
Assessment increases the quality

Relationship between Assessment and Evaluation

Besides the differences, there are also some similarities between assessment and evaluation. The both require
criteria, use measures and are evidence-driven.

So, what’s the difference?

Assessment Evaluation
Is ongoing Provides closure
Improves learning quality Judges learning level
Individualized Applied against standards
Ungraded Graded
Provides feedback Shows shortfalls
Process-oriented Product-oriented
Importance of assessment and evaluation in education
Assessment is a common tool used is education. Why do teachers need to take assessment to improve their
instruction? This article will tell you why assessment is important for learning.

When you start creating instruction (lesson material) for your students, you will have to evaluate your instruction.
The teacher set goals to achieve at the end of each chapter or/and at the end of instruction. Assessment
determines whether or not the goals of education are being met. Continuous questions that come to your mind
when taking assessment are: “Are we teaching what we are supposed to be teaching?” “Are we reaching the
goals we set for the instruction?” “Is there a way to improve your instruction, and promote better learning?” These
questions don’t have to be asked at a certain stage of developing your instruction. You have to ask these
questions throughout the whole instruction and even after you have implemented it. Assessment affects
decisions on different domains: grades, advancement, instructional needs, placement and curriculum.

First, you need to identify which assessment type you need. There are three types: needs driven assessment,
goal oriented assessment and performance assessment.

Needs driven assessment

What does a needs driven assessment exactly mean? A needs driven assessment is used to identify deficiencies
in the performance. Once these are identified, you can think of ways to solve those with an intervention.

Kinds of needs driven assessment

Normative need
Identified by comparing the target group with a national standard. There is a normative need when the
performance of the target group is below the national standard.

Comparative need
Identified by comparing the target group with an equivalent peer group. There is a comparative need, if there is
a gap between these two groups.

Felt need
When an individual has the desire or feeling that it's necessary to improve his or her own performance or the
performance of the audience. There is a gap between the current situation and the desired situation.

Expressed need
A felt need that has been expressed.

Expected need or future need

A way to identify changes that will/can occur in the future.

Important incidental need

Rare incidents, which could have significant consequences. These are potential problems that could occur.

Goal analysis/assessment
Sometimes a needs driven assessment is not always feasible. An alternative approach is a goal
analysis/assessment that starts with an identified problem and addresses a solution. A goal analysis can also
use data from a needs driven assessment to determine which are the priorities.

Performance analysis/ assessment

Before starting an instructional design process, it is important to determine whether doing training will actually
solve the problem. Training is effective if it focuses not only on the symptoms of the problem but also on the
problem itself. A performance analysis is a way to identify performance issues. This process can be described
as finding the source of the problem. If the cause of the problem is known, the best solution can be determined.
Examples of causes of performance problems are lack of knowledge or skills, lack of motivation, environmental
factors, management factors and interpersonal relationships.

Assessment methods and strategies

There are different types of assessment methods which can be used for different goals. First, you have to know
what kind of assessment should be used for your instruction. To make is easy for you to choose what kind of
assessment is needed for your instruction, click on this link.

Writing assessment could be difficult. Here are some tips and tricks that will help you to improve your assessment
and get the best feedback from your students as you can get.

Avoid terms like “always” and “never”

These terms are more often the incorrect options. And yes, participants do know this trick. You don’t want to test
if participants know these tricks. Instead you want to test their knowledge, of course.

Avoid double negatives in one sentence

“Which of the following answers are NOT incorrect?” After reading this question three times, you finally
understand what the meaning is of the question. Instead, you can also ask “Which of the following answers are
correct?” It’s the same meaning, but much easier to understand!

State the question positively instead of negatively

A negatively worded question challenges even the intelligent readers to understand the question. By avoiding
this, you erase the amount of stress. Less confusing and less stressful :)

Give four or five answer options

Experts recommend to give four or five answer options. And you do what experts say, right?
Open-ended questions
In some cases it’s easier to ask yes/no questions. In other cases it’s not very convenient to ask yes/no questions.
You may have some questions about understanding the instruction. If the student says that he didn’t understand
the instruction, you want to know why he or she didn’t understand that question. An open question may be a
solution to solve that problem.
Use our online assessment tool
Using an online assessment tool makes it much easier for you to collect all data of your students. When you
want to engage a large group in your instruction, you want a significant percentage of them to take the
assessment. With our tool you are able to do that! The creator is able to ask several kinds of questions. After the
students have made the assessment, you can export the data to an Excel-file.
Objectives of assessment and evaluation
What are the main objectives of assessments and evaluation? Assessments differ from other tests in the sense
that the latter have a pass/fail rate, whereas the assessment is a test that can generate different outcomes, and
none of them is necessarily wrong or incorrect. Examples of assessments are surveys, placement tests,
personality tests, skills tests, and so on.

Multiple category assessments

In assessments, every different outcome is a different category. In multiple categories’ assessments, for
example, you can have completely different results depending on how the test taker answers them. For example,
for the same question, you can associate different categories (or possible outcomes) for each answer. If it’s a
personality test, you can ask a simple question, and depending on the answer, you score more or less points in
a specific category. The objective is that, in the end, you get to find out which category (or personality type 😅)
best describes you.

Single scale assessments

Single scale assessments also have different categories, but they all score within a scale. They are used for
placement evaluations, for example, in which you can be a beginner, intermediate or advanced learner. For the
same question, depending on your answer, you can score lower or higher within the scale.

Conclusion
You can use our online assessment tool for different purposes: to conduct tests with your students, employees,
candidates, clients, and so on… Online assessments allow you to learn more about your target audience, and
help them learn more about themselves as well – so they can see which of your job openings/products/services
are the right ones for them. As you can see, there are many advantages of online assessments. So, start creating
your first assessment now!

Are quizzes formative or summative?

Quizzes are a way to test the knowledge of students. But are quizzes formative or summative? This article will
give you a definition of formative and summative and when it’s better to use formative or summative assessment.
After that, it will tell what our tool can do for you, if want choose for formative or summative assessment.

Formative assessment
Formative assessment gives an insight into the knowledge people possess for taking a test. Formative
assessment is most valuable during the development of try-outs. The goal is to monitor student learning to
provide feedback. A formative assessment checks the quality of your material. Furthermore it helps identifying
the strengths and weakness of your students. After you’ve taken formative assessment, you’re able to edit whole
instruction of your test and the final exam. Formative assessment is a pre-test to find out where you can improve
your instruction material.

Summative assessment
Summative assessment is aimed at assessing the extent to which the most important outcomes at the end of
the instruction have been reached. But it measures more: the effectiveness of learning, reactions on the
instruction and the benefits on a long-term base. The long-term benefits can be determined by following students
who attend your course, or test. You are able to see whether and how they use the learned knowledge, skills
and attitudes. Depending on the time frame, this process can also be called confirmatory evaluation. This is an
extensive form of summative evaluation.
Formative assessment and our tool
Formative assessment could be seen as a pre-test to know what kind of knowledge students have to attend the
instruction. A nice way to test this knowledge is by creating a quiz. Formative assessment is a small test and a
quiz is simple method to get to know your students better. You’re able to test with several types of questions;
multiple choice question (with up to 10 answer options), fill in the blanks and image answer question. The
handiest thing is that you can track progress and have a direct access into the statistics. This saves a massive
amount of time!

Summative assessment and our tool

For summative assessment it’s better to use another system than a quiz. You measure the whole instruction
students have been taken. A great way to test this is by taken an exam. This allows you to test more than just
knowledge on a basic level. There are several types of questions: multiple choice, fill in the blanks, free text and
image answer questions. Free text allows you to even ask more and test if students really have an understanding
of your instruction. An exam allows the creator to track progress and have an insight into the statistics of his or
her students.

Conclusion
Quizzes are a formative way of assessment. Summative assessment is better to test with an exam, because
you’re testing what students have learned during the entire instruction. Formative assessment measures small
parts of the instruction and quizzes are a good way to test that.

What is an online assessment?

What's the definition/meaning of an online assessment in education?

There are different types of online assessment. Online assessment is used in different working areas and all of
them have their own goal to achieve. The working area that I will highlight is the educational working area.
Educational assessment is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on the knowledge,
skills, attitudes and beliefs. By taking the assessment, teachers try to improve student learning.

Assessment can be focused on the individual learner or all individuals together, like the whole class, an institution
or specific program. Formative assessment will give you an overview of your students in the beginning of your
instruction. It gives you the opportunity to still have the chance to improve your instruction. Summative will give
you the outcome of the whole instruction.
https://www.toppr.com/bytes/types-of-assessment/

What is Assessment?
The assessment cycle first plans and formulate a plan to teach students. Secondly, use the plan to effectively
do the task of teaching. Thirdly, check whether outcomes the work is according to the plan and outcomes met
or not? Lastly, teaches a way to use the learned knowledge.

Meaning of Assessment
Assessment is a process which follows a set of four components. These four stages or components are Plan,
Do, Check and act. It is a process to evaluate the student’s performance. Besides, it is an orderly process. This
uses a test to check the student’s performance. It divides into many types.

Types of Assessment
Formative Assessment
It is an essential part of teaching and learning. It does not add to the final marks given for the unit; instead, it put
into learning through given advice. Also, it points out what is good about the work and what is not? Similarly, it
also affects what the students and teacher will plan in the future for learning.
Summative Assessment
It shows the amount of learners’ success in meeting the assessment. Also, it contributes to the final marks given
for the unit. These are conducted at the end of units. In Addition, it provides data for selection for the next level.
The logic and dependability of summative assessment are of great importance. It can also provide information
that has formative value.
Work Integrated Assessment
This type of assessment is where the tasks and situations are closely associated with what you experience. It
helps to develop student’s skills and capabilities along with educational development. Also, this helps and
support educational staff to design genuine assessments. It designs according to the need of the teacher.
Diagnostic Assessment
Just like formative assessment, diagnostic assessments intended to improve learner’s knowledge. Besides, it
looks backward rather than looking forward. It reviews what the learner knows and difficulty that they are facing
in learning. Not diagnosing these difficulties could limit their participation in learning. Often used when a problem
arises or before it.
Dynamic Assessment
It measures what students can achieve when teaches about unfamiliar topic or field. An example can be teaching
students Spanish for a short while. It helps to see how students who do not have any prior knowledge adopt it.
It can be helpful to review the potential for students who have a mainly underprivileged backdrop. Frequently it
is used in advance of the main body of teaching.
Synoptic Assessment
It gives confidence students to unite elements of their learning from different parts of a plan and to show their
build up knowledge and thoughtful of a topic or subject area. It basically enables students to show their talents
and skills. And it shows how in-depth knowledge they have about the subject. Basically, it helps in measuring
the capacity to apply knowledge to understand the subject.
Criterion-referenced Assessment
The performance of every student is judged by a specific principle. It should be strictly seen that other student’s
performance should not be taken into account. In addition, the teacher should avoid normative thinking because
it can affect judgment. Apart from that, the teacher should assure reliability and validity.
Ipsative Assessment
It measures the performance of the student in comparison to his previous performance. Also, it helps in keeping
in check how well they are undertaking their tasks. Ipsative connect with efforts to enhance motivation to learn.
https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/6-types-assessment-learning/

6 Types Of Assessment Of Learning