During the 491 practicum particularly teaching Pre-Calculus 11 and 12 I had many opportunities to practice my assessment for learning. One of the areas I grew most was my attentiveness and observational assessment of students as they practiced the new skills they were learning. I was able to gauge as I circulated through the room during practice time that I embedded into my instruction whether students were grasping the concepts we were working through and adjust my pacing and lesson plan using that information. If I saw that all students were quickly picking up one step of the learning progression then I could easily move on to the next step after a brief clarification or review, or if students were struggling, I could carefully go through the example we were working on then give another example for students to try again. Using this assessment for learning I could also pace out and adjust my unit plan timing for the rest of the unit so that I could give students the time and guidance that they needed to master topics without taking too much time making the classes drag for those who mastered the concepts more quickly.
Assessment for learning also gave me the chance to design brief reviews of material on the fly at the end of lessons to help students master the skills they were learning. One way I did this was to give students a 20-30 minute practice time during which I circulated through the room helping to clear up any misconceptions and help students get past certain catches. This allowed me to pick up on particular questions that many students were struggling with and allowed me the chance to recognize gaps in class knowledge and go over these questions at the end of class to fill these gaps before they become a problem as students go off and practice on their own.
A few links to start with or refer to:
Transforming Assessment – BC’s New Curriculum
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/node/88
BC’s K-12 Assessment System – BC’s New Curriculum
https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/assessment
Dylan Wiliam – YouTube – Assessment for Learning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiu-jY-xaPg
Dylan Wiliam – YouTube – Assessment Strategies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcJdZGz6ifY
Dylan Wiliam – YouTube – Formative Assessment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYdVe5O7KBE
Assessment: The Bridge Between Teaching and Learning – from Voices in the Middle, Volume 21, Number 2, December 2013
https://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/VM/0212-dec2013/VM0212Assessment.pdf