Essay Sample on Yearly Assessment Plan

Introduction

Students, most of the time, depend entirely on the teacher, parents, the school administration and the general community to ensure progressive achievements in their academic life. It is the responsibility of the adults around them to ensure they maximally accomplish their school objectives including in and out of class activities. Children, especially those in the lower grades, demand a lot of attention and follow-up specifically because they are at intensive and regular stages of growth and development. They exhibit regular changes in all aspects including physical characteristics, social interactions, and emotional developments. Hence, they require regular appraisals to measure their progress especially at school where they interact with different kinds of people (Torgesen, Houston, Rissman & Kosanovich,2007). Also, the assessments are critical as they could help identify students that might need enrollment in special programs. The identification is possible considering the methods of assessment used to measure and evaluate their learning progress and outcomes.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The implication of this is the adults responsible must possess particular mentoring, monitoring and educating skills to make sure all the students put under his or her care are progressing in the right and anticipated direction. Among these skills is the ability to develop a critical pre-planned annual program to ensure accountability of the objectives set to be achieved in that particular year. The yearly assessment plan functions as a road map to provide guidance and ensure the assigned responsibilities have been accomplished in entirety by the end of the academic year. The assessment plan is designed to help the educator keep track of the student's performance, strengths and weaknesses, and what need improvement or change. With the best and suitable tools of evaluation that have been distinctively outlined, the teacher will be in a position to help the students achieve their goals and objectives according to the respective grade levels. The plan aids in putting in place appropriate and relevant strategies that will ensure the end of the set timeline has achieved the anticipated outcomes. The following paper is aimed at proposing a yearly assessment plan for students in grade 2. It is designed in various segments including purpose, methods of assessment, grade level, training, timeline, goals and objectives, learning outcomes, recommendations, and conclusion.

Purpose

The primary objective of developing an annual assessment plan is to enhance the student's performance to achieve better outcomes of the tasks assigned. Educators create the performance appraisals since they are committed to ensuring that the students under their care accomplish their goals and objectives. It is a way of recording the student's learning outcomes and achievements, and how the program can be continuously improved (Mercier & Doolittle, 2013). Another purpose of the assessment plan is to clarify the responsibilities and roles of the school and the community in the improvement of the learners' performance at school. It is essential as it acts as a reminder of what they are supposed to do to accomplish the students' learning ambitions. The teachers will be able to make instructional decisions, significant plans and changes to address the classroom objectives and programs. The administration together with the staff will be able to formulate strategies aimed at accomplishing the school's improvement goals upon identification of the students' achievement levels and trends. Also, the assessment plan will help the district make significant changes in the curriculum.

Moreover, the students will get feedback regarding their performance from their teachers of which they can utilize for self-evaluation. They can compare the achievements with that of their peers to evaluate the progress. The results from the comparison will alert the students on what needs to be improved or rather where or what should be changed to have different and better outcomes probably in the next academic term. However, this particular purpose of the assessment plan applies to students with the ability to evaluate themselves without the help of the adults.

Another purpose of the yearly assessment plan is to help with students' counseling. Children in grade 2 are at the age of almost becoming adolescents. The performance appraisal can be used as a monitoring tool to establish the progress of the students from where the educators can decide on the best advice to give for further direction (Hood, Johnson, Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2007). Also, the guidance and counseling program will help in educational placement and remediation to ensure the learning outcomes of the student has been boosted.

Timeline

The expected timeline for the following yearly assessment is one academic year of which is approximately nine months considering that there are recess periods and holidays that add up to the rest three months. However, the nine months comprises the weekends and holidays; hence, the instructional days during which the assessment can be done at school are approximately 180. Therefore, it is during the instructional days that the teachers and the school administration can effectively have performance appraisal of the students to establish the areas that need improvement for better outcomes. Relatively, the one academic year can be divided into segments especially where the method of assessment used requires a frequent collection of data from the students like the formative method that is utilized for learning. Also, it can involve regular segments such as when using the summative method and the assessment is done after a particular period or completion of a specific activity. Therefore, the timeline through which the annual assessment of the students' academic performance is done can be influenced by how the entire process is being conducted.

Methods/Tools of Assessment

It is vital to have effective means of assessment to ensure that its purposes are realized. With the relevant methods to measure and evaluate the students' performance outcomes, the educators would obtain significant data required to achieve the set goals and objectives. Various methods of assessment can be utilized, and they include the following.

Diagnostic Teaching

It is a test that is used by teachers identify the students' specific weaknesses and strengths, and it is usually done before the beginning of the instructions to establish what one knows about the concepts and skills that are about to be covered. The instructor uses this form of assessment to identify where the students might have difficulties to have a distinct outline of how to carry on with the program. The benefits of this test are that the teacher can understand what the learners are yet to know; hence, she can create a plan that focuses her attention on those specific topics. By doing this, she will have saved time and helped the students gain significant knowledge that was unknown to them earlier. Also, it might be a particular portion of students that are unfamiliar with the topics, and this could help in individualizing the instructions. The instructor, therefore, develops a plan to provide remediation to that particular group until there are understand they fully understand the contents of those instructions.

Moreover, this particular method of assessment is essential in identifying those students that might have special learning needs. Since it helps in recognizing one's weaknesses and strengths, the teacher can be able to single out those with specific learning conditions such as an inability to remember something after some time or low self-esteem. Hence, it will be easier to refer the students to respective programs developed for students with special needs.

Daily Observation

A teacher is privileged to spend a lot of time with the students. Lower levels' students like grade 2 kids are usually left under the care of the teachers and other school staffs until it is time to go home. Hence, it implies that the educator has ample time to observe and evaluate her students' behavior in and out of class. She can assess each one of them according to the data she collects daily. The information is useful in establishing the best plan that can be implemented to boost the students' performance for better learning outcomes (Young, 2006). Furthermore, through daily observation, a teacher would be able to identify certain behavioral conditions of particular kids that might be having significant negative effects on their school work. Thus, she will be in a position to decide on the best remedies to address such issues as early as possible of which is crucial in the student's academic life.

Formative Assessment

In this type of evaluation, the educator will use several methods to analyze and evaluate the student's understanding, any kind of learning needs and progress in class throughout the year. The assessment instrument will involve monitoring the children's behavior in the classroom to help in making significant and necessary decisions regarding the type of or the way of giving out instructions (Mayotte, Wei, Lamphier & Doyle,2013). Some of the means of using formative assessment include analyzing the students' work such as homework and asking strategic questions of which can be done in groups or per individual. Another formative method is the think-pair-share where the instructor asks a question, and the students write down the answers and then join in groups of two to discuss the responses. However, this particular method can be confusing to some kids especially in the lower grades such as level 2 although there are others who can understand it since it is one of the easiest ways a teacher can use to assess her students in the class. Thus, it will be the decision of the educator on whether to utilize the think-pair-share assessment method considering the intelligence of the students.

Summative Assessment

Unlike in formative assessment where the students are tested throughout the learning program, in summative, they are assessed at a particular time after the completion of an instructional unit. It can be done in the middle or end of a term, at the end of a course or year. The aim of this assessment is to determine whether the student has understood what has been taught for a particular set timeline. The tests given to the students are compared with a specific set standard or benchmark. Examples of summative assessments include mid and end of semester exams.

Grade Level

The structure of the yearly assessment plan varies respective of the grade level the educator is in charge of and the nature of the students under his or her care. It is essential to explore and understand what the students in that particular grade level require before developing the plan to avoid unnecessary errors due to lack of adequate information regarding students. The structure changes as the grade levels rise because each comprises different nature of learning and learners due to the transformation that occurs regularly after a certain period of which can be days, weeks, months and even years. Hence, this explains why it is required to create a new assessment plan each year. Grade 2 level includes students aged 7-8 years which is almost to adolescence. Not only will the assessment plan be aimed at monitoring the students' class work, but also their behaviors considering that they are at a transition point in their lives. Thus, it is essential to observe and assess how they carry themselves while in or out of class as this is expected to influence their performance and overall learning outcomes.

Furthermore, students at this grade are unfamiliar with some instructions most of which are offered in the upper-grade levels. It is cr...