Books and Daydreams

This may be due to my content area being ELA, but I found that creating a performance assessment was the most difficult for me. I think it's hard for me to imagine students doing something that isn't writing based given my content area. So, it took me a lot more time to not only come up with a performance assessment but how to properly grade said assessment. In the end, I feel like I came up with something measurable however, I still feel like I will need to work on performance assessments in the future as I continue on my path to becoming an educator. I found the selected response assessment to be the easiest. I feel like coming up with good and thoughtful questions was probably easy for me because I'm very inquiry-based in my teaching. So, it felt very natural for me to generate questions from my students to answer. I think what surprised me most about creating these assessments is how different they all were even though they all connected to the same learning target. m...

I already have a topic for my lesson picked out and a standard as well as a good target. I'm just unsure of how it would work in a real classroom. I think the lack of a placement just has me thinking about the aspects of teaching that I may be missing out on. I can't predict how a class would actually receive my lesson and if I could/need to make it more engaging. I feel like I would feel more comfortable with my lesson plans if I could imagine myself actually teaching them. Lesson plans feel too impersonal, and teaching is really supposed to be the opposite of that. Creating these plans is like staring at a blueprint of a house that isn't built yet. Can I imagine what the house looks like, and can I see if it's been planned out well? Yes, I can but other than that I just can't seem to really connect to it. It lacks that real-life connection for me. It just feels like I'm filling out paperwork if I'm honest.

I think all our students struggle with different types of assessments. From test to performance anxiety to lack of confidence, students can have several different roadblocks. I believe it is up to educators to have open lines of communication open to their students so that they can help students succeed. By discussing what issues students may have when it comes to different assessments we can create proper supports for them to succeed. So, it is not only important that we do a variety of assessments in our classroom but that we work with students to help them achieve their best with assessments that they may struggle with. I think it is deeply important that we have clear expectations for our students and that we are clear about why they are doing the things they're doing. I think this helps minimize a lot of anxiety for students and shows that we are willing to work with them. I plan on giving students extra time to complete performance tasks in my classroom as well as extra testi...