Assessment and Assessment Techniques Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Assessment and Assessment Techniques - Essay Example Formative assessment is a contrast of summative assessment because summative assessment seeks to monitor outcomes of education for external accountability. Developmental stages are the stages that a child goes through from childhood to adulthood. According to the study made by Erickson, the interaction of a person’s body, cultural influences, and mind determines development. With this in mind, Erickson organized eight development stages which progress from birth until death. The eight stages of development include: Infancy (birth to eighteen months), early childhood (eighteen months to three years), play age (three to five years), school age (six to twelve years), adolescence (twelve to eighteen years), young adult (eighteen to thirty five years), middle adulthood (thirty five to sixty five years), and late adulthood (sixty five to death). During my teaching profession, I sought to understand the assessment of the ever changing developmental stages in children. In this respect I planned an activity that would enable me to assess the differing developmental stages of the children in my work setting. This paper explores the devised plan, and implements a formative assessment activity, that takes into account the needs and interests of the children within my work setting. It demonstrates a systematic process of planning, evaluation, implementation, and the rationale for the design. Rationale for planning and implementing an assessment activity. The rational for formative assessment is quite clear and vivid. To start with provision of feedback, formative assessment provides feedback to the teachers so that they can modify the experience, and learning activities that are subsequent. Feedback involves focusing on the content that is being learnt (Blight, S. 2000). This is the epicenter of formative assessment. It facilitates self assessment development, clarifies the essence of good performance, and it is used in the provision of quality information to learner s concerning their learning. Feedback also boosts self-esteem and positive beliefs, and motivates peer and teacher dialogue in learning. Apart from this, formative assessment is important tool to be used to remediate the deficiencies of children (Cowie, B. 1999). It increases the self efficacy of a child and reduces the effect brought about by extrinsic motivation by moving the focus from obtaining grades into the process of learning. This method of assessment also improves the students’ metacognitive recognition of how they can learn (Black, P. 2000). It enables a teacher to fine tune instructions so that the students can focus on learning progress. Being motivated by the rationale for formative assessment, one thinks of an appropriate activity that could be used to assess the developmental stages in children. From many choices of formative activities and, techniques, the appropriate activity that can be used to quench the need for an assessment is the use of the tray painti ng activity with the help of an age and stage questionnaire (ASQ) for analysis. Planning and implementation of this technique is made possible by the use of a lesson plan shown below. Assessment