T.I.P.R.- Assessment

In the classroom I'm observing, the teacher is frequently using Informal Assessments with his students. He often asks them to get into groups and participate in group discussions and he actively listens to the students while they talk. He interjects and gives positive feedback. I asked him after a class about his informal assessments and how he measures if the students are understanding and learning. He says he listens for vocabulary and terms from the unit and observes how engaged the students are.

This teacher also frequently uses exit slips at the end of class. With these, the students are able to give him feedback on how well they understand the material and what they might need extra help on. Hey looks through these exit slips and makes adjustments to the next day's lesson plans.

I asked this teacher about his summative  assessments, and he said he was going to implement something new this coming school year. In past school years, he has offered two different options for students to "show" what they have learned. Typically, he offers them the option of writing a paper, or giving an oral presentation. This school year he wants to still offer these two options, but he also wanted to include two other options. He wants to offer media project in which students would be able to create short 2 to 5 minute documentary. They would present information from the units and share their presentations in class. The other option he wants to try is similar, but rather then a documentary, they could present a photo journalistic project using images they find from primary sources, which are about the information they've learned about the unit.

I have seen both of these options as assessments in my college courses, but not yet in a classroom, so I will be really interested to see how this works for this class!