Keeley

Assessments happen everyday in the classroom. Whether they are formative assessments or summative they are happening often. Formative assessment are those that happen at the end of a unit, midterm, or final. It is intended to tell the teacher what the students have learned and what topics need to be revisited. Summative assessment is cumulative in nature and is used to see if students have met course goals. Another kind of assessment is the formative assessment probe in which teachers can tackle the misconceptions of any subject that a student might enter school. Each probe consists of two parts a selected response and a justification for selecting the response. Probes get the students thinking in order to participate in a group discussion or in order to write down their thoughts on paper.

"The process of making students' thinking explicit through discourse serves a dual purpose. First, it allows teachers to see what types of ideas students have so they can provide interventions that address misconceptions or provide for further learning opportunities. Second, encouraging students to make their ideas explicit to others actually promotes learning for both the thinker and those with whom he or she shares the ideas" (Keeley). I could not agree with this statement more. I believe that it is important to get students thinking using a probe in order to see what they know or what things as a teacher you might need to focus on. When a student is able to talk out a topic with another student it is more than likely that they know the material. I always learned best when I was able to talk things out with people.

Just like the quiz we took in class to find out our misconceptions, I will hold those in my own classroom. I think it is important to always assess the students even if it is just observational. I hope to, as a teacher, present the material I need to but also figure out what they are struggling with and spend time touching on those topics the most. It shocks me how many misconceptions I had about science. It makes me wonder what I was doing in elementary school during science lessons. I do not want my students to feel this way down the line.