Assessment at the elementary level was a new experience for me, as students tend to be a bit disconnected from their overall grades in comparison to upper grade students. My cooperating teacher makes use of very tight grading scales each quarter that cover a range of things from engagement to following instruction on a small number scale (0-4). She assesses individual projects at that level, but it’s less about grading the student and more about gauging the success of the lesson and whether students were learning the concepts effectively which can be used to make the lesson more effective the next time it is taught.
For the purposes of my lesson plan, I created a rubric for my own purposes of assessing how well the students executed my expectations for the project, but also created a self-assessment worksheet that guides students through the experience of creating their project and gives me a form of summative assessment that they understood the vocabulary, the aesthetic goals of the project, and the expected steps to get a complete project. Students at this age seem to seek and respond to verbal approval more than anything, as they want to have their work acknowledged and to be assured that they are ‘doing it right’.
An interesting PBIS activity that was put in place is the ‘Artist of the Week’, where I can select one student who created exceptional work, but also stayed on task, was respectful to their peers and their tools, and was overall a model student for the week. This provides a good goal for students to work towards, as well as a great way to provide that peak assessment moment for an elementary student who needs to get noticed for great work.
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