Assessment Tool

Performance assessment is getting increased attention from educational experts across the nation. Teachers

should be up to date on the latest assessment tools, and learn to use them effectively
to assess student understanding of a given topic.
Worksheets are a very important form of performance assessment. JumpStart has an
extensive collection of worksheets that teachers can use to ascertain how well students
have understood a topic:

Grade-Based Worksheets
The Need for Assessment Tools
Every lesson that a teacher teaches has an objective that students who have
understood the lesson are able to perform tasks they couldnt have done before the
lesson. At the end of the lesson, teachers like to know whether or not the objective has
been realized. For this, they need assessment tools. These allow teachers to measure
how well students have understood a topic. One of the most basic tools is worksheets.
Teachers can ask students to complete worksheets, and how well the worksheet is
completed is an indication of how well the students have understood the lesson. With
this feedback, teachers can review the lesson and the teaching methodology used. The
teacher may decide that some teaching methods were more effective than others, and
based on this conclusion mold future lessons. These important tools allow both teachers
and students to improve their performances.
Performance Assessment Tools
Traditionally, teachers used paper and pencil tests to assess student mastery of a given
concept. However, this assessment method doesnt necessarily grade the performance
of the student. In a multiple-choice question, students may pick the right answer out of
luck. Similarly, in a math test, a student may pick the wrong answer due to an error in
calculation and not because of incomplete understanding of the concept. These
drawbacks call for better assessment methods. This has given rise to the concept of
performance assessment, where students are judged on task performance. Teachers
use assessment tools like rubrics to grade the students performance. Once the tools
are designed, teachers share them with the students. This gives students an
understanding of what the evaluator will be looking for, and students can hone their
skills accordingly. In this method, students are learning even while being tested.

Teachers' Assessment Tools

Teachers' assessment tools are an important part of judging the capabilities,
progress and development of students. Assessment tools help teachers
judge how much a student knows at the beginning of a school year,
semester or subject. Assessment tools also help track progress and inform
the teacher when the subject matter has been adequately learned by the
students. Teachers' assessment tools come in various forms, including
homework, tests, interviews, oral reports, papers and instructor observation.
Teachers' assessment tools can be formative, summative, objective and
subjective.

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Conventional Types of Assessment Tools

Tools for Education Assessment

Formative Assessment
Formative assessment tools are used to evaluate a student at the beginning
or middle of a class, semester or subject. Placement tests, interviews and
teacher observation and feedback are examples of formative assessment
tools. Formative assessment tools are designed to help a teacher understand
a student's progress. Formative assessment tools are not graded. They are
intended solely to guide a student to mastery of the given subject and inform
the teacher where she needs the student to focus.

Summative Assessment
Summative assessment tools are used to gauge the outcome of the learning
process. They focus on the curriculum presented during the learning unit and
are used to find out whether or not a student was effectively taught a
particular subject. A graded test, final exam, quiz, thesis paper and midterm

exam are all examples of summative teachers' assessment tools. Summative

tools should be designed to reflect the information given in the course.
Unlike formative tools, they are designed to reveal what already has been
learned during the course of a particular educational unit. Only summative
assessment tools should be graded.

Objective Assessment
Teacher's assessment tools, whether formative or summative, can be further
divided into two other categories: objective and subjective. Objective
assessment tools have a clearly defined right and wrong answer. They are
used to assess a student's knowledge of particular facts and figures that are
universal. Examples of objective assessment tools are true/false and
multiple-choice questions. Math problems are almost always objective
assessment tools, as they leave little room for interpretation. Objective
assessment tools are the easiest to design and grade and, therefore, are the
more common type of assessment tool.

Subjective Assessment
Subjective assessment tools require a little more creativity and opinion on
the part of the student. These are questions, papers or tests that rely on the
presentation of arguable material. Essay questions, research papers and
argumentative speeches are examples of subjective assessment tools. They
can often reveal more than an objective assessment tool because they allow
for more than just memorization on the part of the student. The student's
tastes, personality and approach to education can more effectively be
observed with subjective assessment tools. Objective and subjective
teachers' assessment tools often are used in conjunction, such as a test that
has a section of true/false questions and then an essay question at the end.