Week 7 Discussion 1 - An Introduction to Comprehensive Assessment

I get tired of living in an educational world of multiple choice. So, I started providing my students with projects. In a Language Arts classroom, students do a lot of reading and the teacher ask a lot of questions to make sure students are comprehending. It is easy to create a multiple choice assessment when using the district’s standard assessment creator. However, when thinking about different ways to assess the students can be challenging.

Since my students are reading the novel, All American Boys by Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds, I wanted my students to have fun with their understanding of the book. So, I created a Tic-Tac-Board of activities they can create to show their understanding of the novel and the learning standards. Students have to select two activities to complete and present one of the activities to their classmates. For example, students have been learning how to write an objective summary. The Movie Trailer - Create a movie trailer about All American Boys. *Select a song that will play in the background that supports your movie trailer scene. *Your movie trailer should be at least 1 to 2 minutes’ long *Be creative and hook the viewer with a memorizing objective summary of the novel. *Remember, you want the viewers to go see the movie! Another activity on the Tic-Tac-Board is to research police shootings in their city or state within the last two years or more (depending on the information they find). This activity is still connected to the novel and it brings in their world.

 When I presented the Tic-Tac-Board to my students, they were really excited about it. Some had already decided on the two activities they were going to complete. This was a better reaction then when I mentioned we have an assessment to take in a week. I usually receive moans and groans. I believe this will not be a challenge for the staff because we all have the same goal in mind. The goal is to educate our students in an exciting way that relates to the real world. Some content areas may need help relating to the real world and help will be provided. It all comes down to real-world connection for our students in order to get them to learn.