Maddison Valkar

ED887OA
10/2/19
Course Reflection

Important concepts

Throughout this course, I have gained an exceptional amount of knowledge about

developing authentic assessments to evaluate my students throughout the year. I will continue
to utilize the most valuable concepts, including: 1) the various types of assessments to use
throughout a unit (selected response, written response, performance, and communication); 2)
sound grading practices to ensure that a student’s grades are an accurate reflection of their
achievement level; and 3) students self-tracking, self-assessing, and setting goals to further
learning.
Utilizing the various types of assessments provides me with the ability to gather more
accurate information that better represents a student, their abilities, and what they have and
have not learned. This is important to me because it gives students a clear illustration of their
current knowledge base, strengths, and weaknesses.
Using sound grade practices is intended to be fair to students and not harm their
motivation and achievement by evaluating and reporting desirable factors (self-assessments,
progress, goals, etc.), and not undesirable factors (effort, ability, work completion, etc.). This
concept is important to me because students should feel their value and that learning is a
process.
Providing students with the opportunity to participate in their own learning by self-
tracking, self-assessing, and setting goals to further learning can assist in identifying gaps, areas
that require improvement, and revision of work. I believe using this method increases students’
accountability and responsibility, while becoming more aware of their progress.
Improvements
In the classroom, I plan to improve my grading practices and focus on what to track,
what to report, and how to report it. Currently, our district uses an outdated record keeping
system to report mastery. This makes reporting stressful and undesirable and is a
misrepresentation of the whole child; causing inappropriate behaviors and misconduct. Also, I
do not like to enter all grades, but our district compares teachers’ grade reports on a weekly
basis. The importance of this improvement is that stakeholders are more informed and involved
in district policies and processes. The necessary changes will come by making a conscious effort
and discussing with stakeholders the new grading practices to better represent our students.