Social Studies Middle School Guide

Canyons School District

Instructional Supports Department

CSD SYSTEM OF ASSESSMENT Ensuring Student Success Through Assessment

In a balanced assessment system, teachers use classroom assessments, team assessments, interim assessments, and comprehensive assessments to monitor and enhance student learning in relation to the state standards and goals for student profciency (Schneider, Egan, & Julian, 2013). This level of balancing requires educators to understand and maximize the role of assessment for feedback and assessment for verifcation (Schimmer, 2016). In other words, assessment is viewed as teaching in that we engage in accurate assessment processes, day by day and moment by moment, rather than curriculum coverage (Erkens, 2016). Canyons School District System of Assessment outlines an integrated assessment system to support educators with gathering evidence of student thinking patterns in order to plan instructional responses before, during, and after instruction has taken place.

Critical Actions for Educators —----------------------- ● Ensure that assessments are aligned to standards. ● Choose a variety of assessment types. ● Use assessment data to determine if initial instruction was suffcient (at least 80% of students got it) or if more instruction is needed. ● Use assessment data to determine which students need further

support or extension.

Frequent assessing of student learning allows educators to:

A balanced assessment system ensures that information is available to answer important questions within the Standards-based Instructional Cycle.

● identify gaps in student learning to inform class, team, school, and district supports ● set goals for class, team, school, and district improvement ● measure effectiveness of instructional programs for all subgroups of students ● compare levels of achievement across grades, schools, districts, states ● share information with stakeholders ● celebrate teaching and learning successes