Choosing The Right Assessments For Your Students

In partnership with Model Teaching, an industry leader in supporting educators, you will learn how to design effective assessments that are well-aligned with your learning objectives in this comprehensive course. Model Teaching's Mission is to improve student performance by directly supporting teachers with quality content and resources. You will learn to design four different types of assessments, evaluate specific assessment items that can be crafted to check for student learning, and build a detailed assessment plan ready for implementation in your classroom.

SHARE
3 Months / 16 Course Hrs
Open Enrollment
Offered in partnership with your preferred school

ed2go

Change School
Learning method

Choosing The Right Assessments For Your Students

Enroll Now

Course code: T14704

This teacher professional development course explores four types of assessments (Diagnostic, Formative, Summative, and Interim/Benchmark). It teaches you effective assessment design and helps you formulate a comprehensive plan well aligned to your lesson objectives. It provides one component of the backward design planning process to ensure that your objectives, assessments, and lesson activities are cohesive and aligned.

You will learn the important role that Bloom's Taxonomy plays in design—aligning each assessment item to your learning objectives. The course teaches you to design a detailed assessment plan for your classroom and comes with multiple templates, guides, and planning tools for use in your planning.

What you will learn

  • Compare and contrast four types of assessments used to measure and increase student learning
  • Analyze a method for creating objective-aligned assessments to enhance student learning
  • Evaluate the three types of most common assessment items
  • Design an assessment plan that meets the needs of all learners

How you will benefit

  • You will be more confident in your ability to understand each student's level of understanding with the lesson content
  • Your lesson planning process will become more streamlined and efficient as you will already have an assessment plan in place
  • Students will naturally begin to improve academically because your clear expectations and testing standards are well-constructed

How the course is taught

  • Self-Guided, online course
  • 3 Months access
  • 16 course hours
  1. The Importance and Purpose of Assessments
    1. Learn about why assessments are important, the purpose of providing assessments to students, and how it fits into a backward design model for lesson development. Then, reflect upon your own ideas about assessments, what makes a good assessment, and what purpose assessments should serve.
  2. Types of Assessments and Student Feedback
    1. Learn the four main types of assessments discussed in this course- Diagnostic Assessments, Formative Assessments, Summative Assessments, Interim/Benchmark Assessments plus methods for providing student feedback based on each assessment type. Then, reflect on how you'd incorporate these assessment types into a lesson of your content area and grade level.
  3. Question Types and Alignment
    1. Learn the important role that Bloom's Taxonomy plays in designing assessments and aligning each assessment item to your learning objectives and learn the main types of questions used in assessments. Then, reflect on how you would select appropriate question types and question content in your assessments for an objective of your content area and grade level.
  4. Assessment Writing & Using a Rubric
    1. Learn how to effectively write summative assessments and design rubrics that measure student learning well. Then, reflect on how you'd design a summative assessment and rubric for an objective of your content area and grade level.
  5. The Role of Assessments in the Learning Process
    1. Learn why assessments are such a critical piece of the learning process and reflect on past activities you have encountered where assessments were not well aligned to the activity measuring the learning process.
  6. Putting it All Together
    1. Using the sample provided, build an assessment plan aligned with your next unit's objectives.
  7. Applying What you Have Learned
    1. Get ideas on how to implement the concepts into your classroom, find a list of online resources that support assessment design, and read the research behind assessments that support this evidence- based professional development.
Self-Study

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

  • This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

  • PC: Windows 10 or later.
  • Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
  • Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox is preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
  • Microsoft Word Online
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader
  • Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

  • Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.
  • Editing of a Microsoft Word document is required in this course. You may use a free version of Microsoft Word Online, or Google Docs if you do not have Microsoft Office installed on your computer. Model Teaching can provide support for this.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Your course begins immediately after you enroll.​

You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

Behavior Contract DesignFundamentalsIntegrating Technology with Blended LearningFundamentalsBuilding Effective Writing Prompts for All StudentsFundamentalsClassroom Management ProcessesFundamentalsExplicit Instruction in Elementary ReadingFundamentals
Fundamentals
Behavior Contract Design
Fundamentals
Integrating Technology with Blended Learning
Fundamentals
Building Effective Writing Prompts for All Students
Fundamentals
Classroom Management Processes
Fundamentals
Explicit Instruction in Elementary Reading