Quality Control
Shared vocabulary, grammar,and understanding of the manner in which a culture communicates meaning through verbal and nonverbal cues
Common language and cultural awareness
Instructional questions designed to guage level of student understanding generally focus on these learning targets
Knowledge and reasoning
Element of forethought when deciding the development of class discussions that asks: How do you want to use the information? Who else will use it? To do what?
Purpose
In a conference or interview, you should avoid these types of questions
Yes or no
This type of personal communication-based assessment captures written conversations between students and teachers
Dialogue Journals
Classroom environment that welcomes error and has a clear goal of learning that includes making mistakes
Creating a safe learning environment
One basic option for asking questions that crafts a question with a specific student in mind for the purpose of probing the level of understanding
Directed questions
Class discussions are recommended to be used for this type of assessment
Formative Assessment
Each meeting for a conference or interview as an assessment type should conclude with what
A summary (of lessons learned, information gleaned, or implications for the future)
This type of personal communication-based assessment involves regularly giving students time to write for a clear purpose and audience.
Personal Journals
Recording results before they get lost or are changed by our minds
Meeting the record keeping challenge
One basic option for asking questions where students are called on by volunteering or as random that are suited to checking for understanding and to deepening thinking.
Undirected Questions
This key to successful use of class discussion involves focusing on the intended achievement target and determining what will take place
Preparing questions or discussion issues in advance
An important strength of the interview or conference as a mode of assessment lies in the impact it can have on this
Student-teacher relationship
This type of personal communication-based assessment asks students to keep ongoing written records of various aspects of their studies
Learning Logs
Remaining aware of and striving to understand the personal and professional lenses through which we hear and process student responses
Becoming aware of personal “filters”
The length of “think time” recommended by researchers between asking the question and inviting responses
Three to seven seconds
Mode of assessing a standard that clearly descirbels each component at several levels of competence
Scoring Rubric
Oral examinations can reliably measure which learning targets
Knowledge, reasoning, and some performance skill targets
Advantages of students recording information in a personal journal
Students can keep the journal and review their thoughts, questions, and progress periodically
Gathering just enough evidence to make a relatively confident judgement of level of achievement without wasting time gathering too much evidence
Meeting the Sampling Challenge
Method recommended for choosing respondents for instructional questions that keeps all students engaged
Randomizing
This should be provided to students if the learning target being assessed isn’t related to discussion skills
Private means of demonstrating achievement
Oral examination checklists or rubrics should allow you to separate these two elements so students aren’t able to do well without target mastery
Achievement of knowledge/reasoning from facility with verbal expression
The various aspects of study that students keep in learning logs include (each answer gets 100 points
Targets they have mastered
Targets they have found useful and important
Targets they are having difficulty mastering
Learning experiences that have worked well for them
Experiences that were confusing or difficult
Questions they have
Ideas for study topics or learning strategies they might like to try