Assessment

Evidence of excellence in designing ESL curriculum and assessment is demonstrated in the artifacts listed below, which I created in my PGMT curriculum and assessment course in collaboration with my PLC in this class; a group consisting of two ELA students and two ESL students.

Philosophy

My study of assessment in the PGMT program rendered a “lightbulb” moment when, through my coursework and clinical experiences, I began to understand which strategies lead to best practices in assessment. Teachers can use formative assessment as a tool to ensure students remain on the learning path and successfully achieve the UKDs (Understanding, Know, Do) outlined in the learning targets.  This is particularly useful for lessons aimed at building skills that rely on previously acquired knowledge; like math, science, and foreign languages.

Formative assessments can be observations, homework, classwork, Venn diagrams, and exit tickets, and the data collected is not merely a tool for evaluating students. Assessments can inform teaching, planning, pacing, and selection of materials. Teachers can use assessment data to determine which changes need to be made to the curriculum to better align the content and delivery to the students' needs.

Description, Analysis, and Reflection

In recent years, I have begun to define my pedagogical concerns and priorities more specifically and contextualize these areas through action research and scholarly activities that will help improve my content areas; ESL and World languages (Spanish and Portuguese), instructional media, and technology. Research should be an essential part of every teacher’s career, but it can be a time-consuming process. Still, learning to design research instruments, and collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data seems to go hand-in-hand with curriculum and instruction. 

My preferred assessment strategies for ESL and World Languages include pre-assessment, formative assessment, student self-reflection, performance tasks, and rubrics. In K-12, I prefer to use visual organizers and exit tickets to check for understanding at the end of a lesson. I believe summative assessments should be differentiated and equitable. Rubrics and performance tasks are effective assessments because they render products that enable teachers to measure understanding as well as acquired skills. They are applicable and practicable in a variety of lessons and activities.

Oral presentations and performances are necessary to measure communicative competencies in ESL. Whether synchronous or asynchronous, virtual or in-person, some form of oral production in the proper context, will enable the instructor to measure speaking skills. Fortunately, the ubiquity of digital media and mobile phones exponentially extends the realm of possibilities for qualitatively driven ESL and foreign language assessment.