Assessment+Interview


 * Interview**

I interviewed Mrs. Tanya Cervantes. Mrs. Cervantes teaches in a bilingual first grade classroom in a transitional bilingual program. She indicates that assessment takes up a lot of time because it is ongoing. She is not speaking of the formal testing, but of her informal and formal classroom assessments. Mrs. Cervantes says that she is always assessing informally as she introduces lessons and as students are working as well as after she collects that work and does a more formal assessment of it. As she put it, “Assessment is an essential part of teaching and is always taking place.”

Mrs. Cervantes indicates that she has used a wide variety of assessments including portfolios, checklists, anecdotal records, and journals. Her favorite types of assessment are extended response entries and portfolios. In her classroom she uses portfolios including holistic rubrics for all subject areas, oral assessments, and weekly reading comprehension tests. She prefers to use authentic assessments, though she must also use some of the assessments required by the school such as IDEL and Saxon math, because she wants to have a more rounded picture of what her students can and cannot do and what strategies they are using to complete tasks. She uses rubrics her students are familiar with so that they know what is expected of them. Mrs. Cervantes believes the pros of classroom assessments are the ability of the teacher to analyze student work, tap into strengths and weaknesses and tailor instruction to meet individual needs of students. Some cons of classroom assessment she mentioned are teachers having to use assessments mandated by the school or district and time away from teaching to administer assessments.

The use of portfolios in the classroom allows the students to self-monitor progress as well as the teacher monitoring. Mrs. Cervantes includes running records, checklists, and miscues as part of her progress monitoring. When there is a particular student she has concerned about she may also utilize the RTI system in her school to more closely monitor student progress using specific strategies designed to best meet individual needs. Even if they are not going to go into the RTI system, Mrs. Cervantes spends a lot of time differentiating her instruction to best meet the different learning styles and proficiency levels of her students.

Periodic conferences with parents, in their native language, are the primary way that Mrs. Cervantes communicates assessment data to parents. In addition the school sends home information for parents in both English and Spanish to inform them in writing about the standardized tests.

When it comes time for standardized tests, the teachers administer them and then use the data to guide instruction. The standardized tests used in Mrs. Cervantes’ school include DIBELS/IDEL and the 3D program attached to it, ACCESS, ISAT, and also Benchmark assessments. Not all of these apply at the first grade level. Mrs. Cervantes believes that these tests have pros and cons. The pros include the fact that these types of tests give teachers, students, and parents an idea of where their development is according to their age and grade level. The cons include cultural bias, a mismatch of skills tested, and not providing a rounded picture of student ability. In addition, these types of tests generate a lot of stress, according to Mrs. Cervantes, on both teachers and students. She believes that due to the widespread use of “data-based instruction and high-stakes testing, stress will most likely continue.”

Mrs. Cervantes believes that administrators can provide professional development for teachers to help them understand assessment better and give them tools to improve assessment in their classrooms. She also believes that administration can do a better job of giving teachers the right tools for assessment, rather than teachers having to come up with everything on their own, and support staff to help alleviate the time constraints. To improve her own assessment abilities, Mrs. Cervantes attends multiple professional development sessions provided by her school as well as referring to her own books on assessment and making use of the internet to access new and current ideas on assessment.