The Assessment Priniciple/Article: On-the-Spot Assessments

The Assessment Priniciple highlights important points concerning the major part of giving assessments to students of all ages, such as improving students learning. It's important for teachers to understand that assessments do not dictate how smart students are, but it judges their performance on that particular subject matter. The Assessment Principle briefly describes how teachers should be careful when deciding which assessment to administer to students. Since every student learns in different ways, teachers should make assessments a normal routine as part of the classroom instruction, instead of a distraction to the classroom environment. As expressed in the reading, assessments should develop students learning and is an important tool for teachers to use when making informative decisions.

I think this article describes how students use their estimation, prediction, identification, observation and number thinking skills. Although this article strongly informs readers about the five main points listed above, it strongly supports how students observe and predict. In the activity explained in the article, the teacher began by recognizing that her students had observation problems which became another problem for them to estimate quantity. Four canisters labeled A-D were filled with differently sized candies. Students were told to predict how many candies were filled in each canister. At the end of the assessment, the teacher suggested when they are told to predict how many candies are in a jar, they should ask the question, "How big are the candies?" Asking a question that is relevant to the study is a change in how math can be taught and assessed.