How To Engage Your Students With Effective Assessment

Introduction 

In the education system, one important method to evaluate, measure and document the academic records is through “assessment”. Through assessment, the teacher can evaluate the student’s academic skills, behavior, and extracurricular activities. Assessment is one of the key components in the education system. By assessing, the teacher could identify the student’s progress and performance.

In simple words, assessment is a tool to measure the performance of a student. An assessment would help the students to Increase focus and concentration. Moreover, effective assessments are one of the important opportunities in educational institutions. Through effective assessment, students can practice different creative methods, analyze the scenario and synthesize the activities. Through effective assessment, the students are able to collaborate more with peers and communicate more with peers and teachers.

Why Should We Assess Students 

One important reason for assessing students is to ensure that the students are getting the best education and learning in schools. An assessment helps the teacher to know the performance of the student and their knowledge regarding the subjects. Even more, through assessment, the teacher could understand the student’s talent in his/her own way. For instance, a student could be very talented in solving mathematical problems. The teacher will be known only after assessing the student. Once after assessing the student, the teacher can provide additional training for the children and make his/her talent shine. Therefore, assessing based on the skills help the student to succeed and achieve higher.  

Engaging Students with Effective Assessment 

There are certain strategies that can be followed in schools. With the help of these strategies, mentors can provide an effective assessment for the students.

• Quizzes – One common method to assess the students is to conduct quizzes. Through quizzes, students gain a good knowledge regarding the subject. In addition to that, students can frame their own questions from subjects and can shoot out the question with their peers. By doing this, students can have additional knowledge regarding the subject. Some students might develop their competitive skills through this activity.

• Summarizing The Concepts – Summarizing the concept is also one common method followed by mentors. Ask any of the students to summarize the whole concepts. Through his/her summary, the mentor could know how much the student has understood the concept. And moreover, the teacher could assess herself about the way of teaching. If a student finds it difficult to summarize the concepts, the teacher could try out a different way of teaching.

• Pair And Share – Pair & share is one of the different methods to assess the student. In this assessment, the teacher makes the student form a pair. Then the teacher provides a concept for each student. The respective student should analyze and study the concept. Then, the student should explain his/her concept with the pair. In a similar way, another member of a team also does that. Through this activity, the students could develop their analytical skills and communication skills. The teacher could easily assess the students who lack analytical and communication skills.

• Creative Working – One of the common tools to assess is collage making. In the collage-making activity, students are asked to design creative collages using magazines and newspapers. Students can formulate different shapes and images. Through the collage-making activity, the teacher could easily assess the creative skills of the student. Another important method to assess creative skills is, making your students carve the vegetables. This is also one method to assess the creativity of the student.

• Justification – Some students wrongly understand the concepts which are taught in class. To avoid misconceptions, ask your student whether he/she agrees or disagrees with the concepts. In addition to that, the mentor could ask for justification. With the help of this justification, the teacher could easily assess the student. If he/she goes wrong with the concept, then the teacher can make some corrections with the given justification.

• Journal Making – Only based on speaking activity, the teacher cannot assess the student. The mentor should allow the student to write a few journals. In the journal, the student could write about the key takeaways from classes. he/she can also write about the interesting part of today’s class. Through this activity, the teacher could check out the student’s interest in the class, their concentration power. In addition to that, the mentor can even check out the writing skill of the student. Moreover, he can assess the student’s vocabulary and grammar.

• Choral Reading – One important tool to assess the reading skill is choral reading. In this activity, the teacher makes the student read any journal, article or any chapter. When a student starts to read the given journal, the teacher could assess a student’s fluency in the language, pronunciation, and misspelling of work. Through this assessment, the teacher could monitor the verbal skills of the student.

Conclusion 

Evaluating the student based on exams, class tests, and marks does not make any student succeed. Apart from exams and tests, the student should also be aware of reading, writing and communication skills. It is mandatory for all mentors to engage the students with effective assessment.