Assessment Strategies to Guide Instruction

The current emphasis on assessment in education may have you lamenting that you are being required to “teach to the test.” In many schools, the demands of No Child Left Behind and state-mandated testing leave teachers and their students with the impression that testing is a punitive activity designed to reveal inadequate performance by schools and students. Add the fact that school effectiveness is evaluated by student performance on these high-stakes tests, that schools are threatened with closing if performance isn't deemed adequate, that teacher bonuses are often tied to the performance of the entire school, and that students cannot receive course credit unless they pass these tests, and it quickly becomes evident why assessment has become such a “hot button” issue. It's easy for a beginning teacher to lose sight of the fact that assessments should guide instruction and help students become more effective learners.