Formative Assessment in Inclusive Classrooms

There are only a few weeks left in my first semester in the Early Grades Preparation Program at West Chester.  I feel like I have achieved some significant milestones, like teaching my first lesson to a classroom full of teachers and authoring my first exam based on a chapter in a textbook.  Although I have learned so much, I feel like there is still so much more I have to learn.  I feel as though there are many aspects of teaching that are easily understood and completed in a controlled classroom or demonstrated well in a textbook, that do not translate easily into real life scenarios.  One of those aspects being testing accommodations.  

After writing my own test for the first time, I now understand that there are many accommodations that can be built into the test as it's being written.  I think it's important to look at all aspects of the classroom in this way and consider what simple changes can be made to make things easier on the student, reduce stress, and still gain important information about their true knowledge and understanding.  More importantly, what can be done in the classroom environment to make sure that students who learn differently feel comfortable and accepted, so that they can express their creativity and their ideas? I worry about having a student who is struggling, or having difficulties that they don't feel comfortable talking about, or that I can't identify easily.  Even if their struggles are easy to identify, it may not be clear how to help that student.  Maybe that's why I'm eager to learn as much as I can, hoping that with more tools in my toolbox, I can better appropriately accommodate any needs a student might have.  

From my own personal experience, having many positive experiences at school has changed my life. I've worked with students and talked to adults who haven't had many positive experiences at school, and I see how that shapes the way that they view themselves. I do believe that one great teacher can open a student's eyes to their own potential and abilities, and one of the best ways to do that is making sure the classroom lessons are reaching a student at their level by providing them the accommodations that they need. 

I think frequent, authentic formative assessment is a great way to identify what it is that a student is having difficulty with and from there, different methods can be employed to try to correct this mismatch of information.  But, the formative assessment has to be getting at a student's true knowledge, just like any other assessment would. For a student who has difficulty retrieving, decoding, or manipulating information, formative assessments could be a little tricky, since they are often done quickly in the classroom. 

In the first youtube video that I watched, Formative Assessment in Inclusive Classrooms, provided by QUIO Quipped Interactive Learning Tools Inc., Faye Brownlie discusses the positive impact formative assessment has had on Inclusive Classrooms in Canada.  She mentions that using clear language, and having transparent learning goals in the classroom, that relate directly to formative assessment, can make learning easier for students.  

To me, it seems that even though formative assessment differs from objective testing, approaching it with the same mindset may have benefits for students.  I also think that having pre-planned questions and knowing which level they are could be helpful to achieve a more meaningful formative assessment of student knowledge.  Of course, there is room for flexibility, but the structure allows a teacher to really plan the question ahead of time and make it the best that it can be. I've noticed in my own experience of writing test questions (which I'll admit is very limited), higher level thinking questions usually take time and don't always come off the cuff on the first try like a lower-level thinking question can. 

I think that building accommodations into a lesson like this, by pre-planning formative assessment and making it as clear as possible, is a great way to access students in an inclusive classroom.  If a teacher can address a students need before it's even identified as a need, isn't that the best teaching practice? If there are simple additions or a little extra work that can take place in the planning process that will make the lesson more meaningful to students, isn't that worth it? I know as a teacher, I would rather put in the work before a lesson rather than after the lesson, wondering how I can re-teach something in order to make sure each student understands.  Of course, it won't always happen that way, but I think it's important to consider how all types of assessments are approached and plan as much as possible.