week8

Assessments and Grading Rubric

Formative Assessment

Questions and answers	Questions will be asked as the lesson goes on and students asked to answer at random
Observation	Observe how students react to new concepts
Exit slips and admits slips	Questions will be administered and collected at the end of the lesson
Self-assessment	Students will be asked to reflect on their learning process
Group discussions	Students will be grouped to discuss what they have learned
Peer-assessment	Students will be asked to assess one another

Formative assessment refers to the techniques employed by teachers to undertake the in-process evaluation of the students’ grasp of a concept being taught (Black & William, 2009). A good formative assessment should be able to give feedback to the teacher on the students' comprehension, the learning needs and the progress made during the lesson or topic. The objective of the designed formative assessment will be to gather information and learning experiences that will be used to improve the learning process and make modifications where necessary.

As the lesson progresses, the teacher will pose questions to the students at different stages of Piaget's Cognitive Stages of Development and students will be selected to answer at random to test the individual grasp of the processes and characteristics involved in the different stages. Observation will be essential in evaluating the students' concentration levels and their reaction to the introduction of new concepts. Admit slips with questions on the previous lesson will be given at the start of the lesson to test the students' comprehension of the previous concepts learned. Exit slips with questions on the lesson of the day will also be given and collected at the end of the lesson to evaluate how the students faired during the lesson. The students will also be asked to undertake a self-assessment test on how they understood the concept. Group discussion will be encouraged for the students to also do peer-assessment on one another and come up with questions on areas that need clarification and ways to improve the learning process.

Summative Assessment

The following questions will be asked at the end of the topic to do a summative assessment of the students' grasp of the concept of Piaget's theory of cognitive development.

1. Is the rehearsal of information among different levels of school-going children an ability they develop as they age or is it a skill they acquire through formal education?

2. In your opinion, would a genius child reach the formal operational stage faster than a child of formal intelligence?

3. Does the environment have any influence on the progression through Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?

A summative assessment aims to test the students' grasp and comprehension of the whole concept (Garrison &Ehringhaus, 2007). At the end of the topic, the above questions will be given to the students and answers expected within a given timeline. The purpose of the test will be to test the students’ understanding of the stages of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. This test will be appropriate because it will test the students on their understanding of the stages of cognitive development as well as the characteristics associated with each stage of cognitive development as advanced by Piaget.

The first part of the assessment will test the students' application of the stages of cognitive development in a real-life situation. The second question will test the students' grasp of the characteristics that define each stage and how they can be used to analyze children's cognitive development. The third question will test the factors that are ideal for a child to progress through the stages of Piaget’s cognitive development theory.

Grading Rubric

	Excellent	Competent	Needs Work
Knowledge/Understanding 30%	The student demonstrates an in-depth understanding of the four stages of Piaget's cognitive development and application goes beyond what was discussed in class	The student demonstrates accurate knowledge but the application of the concept does not go beyond the classroom discussion	The student shows inaccurate information and demonstrates a lack of in-depth knowledge of the stages and application of cognitive development
Thinking and Inquiry 30%	The student demonstrates conceptual awareness and ability in their answers as well as critical thinking and inquiry around the concepts	The student demonstrates conceptual awareness and ability in their answers with little thinking and inquiry	Student lacks conceptual awareness ability with little or no inquiry around the concepts
Communication 20%	Ideas and answers are communicated with proper spellings and grammar	Ideas and answers are communicated clearly but with some little grammatical errors	The student fails to communicate the ideas and answers clearly and submission is full of grammatical and spelling errors
Use of practical examples 20%	The student demonstrates the ability to include practical examples to answer the questions and communicated	The student demonstrates the ability to include practical examples to answer the questions but the examples are not communicated.	The student does not include practical examples in their answers

References

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation, And Accountability, 21(1), 5-31. DOI: 10.1007/s11092-008-9068-5

Garrison, C., & Ehringhaus, M. (2007). Formative and summative assessments in the classroom. Retrieved from http://www.amle.org/Publications/WebExclusive/Assessment/tabid/1120/Default.asp x