Assessment ToolPerformance assessment is getting increased attention from educational experts across the nation. Teachers should be up to date on the latestassessment tools,and learn to use them effectively to assess student understanding of a given topic.Worksheets are a very important form of performance assessment. JumpStart has an extensive collection of worksheets that teachers can use to ascertain how well students have understood a topic: Grade-Based WorksheetsThe Need for Assessment ToolsEvery lesson that a teacher teaches has an objective that students who have understood the lesson are able to perform tasks they couldnt have done before the lesson. At the end of the lesson, teachers like to know whether or not the objective has been realized. For this, they needassessment tools.These allow teachers to measure how well students have understood a topic. One of the most basic tools is worksheets. Teachers can ask students to complete worksheets, and how well the worksheet is completed is an indication of how well the students have understood the lesson. With this feedback, teachers can review the lesson and the teaching methodology used. The teacher may decide that some teaching methods were more effective than others, and based on this conclusion mold future lessons. These important tools allow both teachers and students to improve their performances.Performance Assessment ToolsTraditionally, teachers used paper and pencil tests to assess student mastery of a given concept. However, this assessment method doesnt necessarily grade the performance of the student. In a multiple-choice question, students may pick the right answer out of luck. Similarly, in a math test, a student may pick the wrong answer due to an error in calculation and not because of incomplete understanding of the concept. These drawbacks call for better assessment methods. This has given rise to the concept of performance assessment, where students are judged on task performance. Teachers useassessment toolslike rubrics to grade the students performance. Once the tools are designed, teachers share them with the students. This gives students an understanding of what the evaluator will be looking for, and students can hone their skills accordingly. In this method, students are learning even while being tested.

Teachers' Assessment ToolsTeachers' assessment tools are an important part of judging the capabilities, progress and development of students. Assessment tools help teachers judge how much a student knows at the beginning of a school year, semester or subject. Assessment tools also help track progress and inform the teacher when the subject matter has been adequately learned by the students. Teachers' assessment tools come in various forms, including homework, tests, interviews, oral reports, papers and instructor observation. Teachers' assessment tools can be formative, summative, objective and subjective.Other People Are Reading Conventional Types of Assessment Tools Tools for Education AssessmentFormative AssessmentFormative assessment tools are used to evaluate a student at the beginning or middle of a class, semester or subject. Placement tests, interviews and teacher observation and feedback are examples of formative assessment tools. Formative assessment tools are designed to help a teacher understand a student's progress. Formative assessment tools are not graded. They are intended solely to guide a student to mastery of the given subject and inform the teacher where she needs the student to focus.Summative AssessmentSummative assessment tools are used to gauge the outcome of the learning process. They focus on the curriculum presented during the learning unit and are used to find out whether or not a student was effectively taught a particular subject. A graded test, final exam, quiz, thesis paper and midterm exam are all examples of summative teachers' assessment tools. Summative tools should be designed to reflect the information given in the course. Unlike formative tools, they are designed to reveal what already has been learned during the course of a particular educational unit. Only summative assessment tools should be graded.Objective AssessmentTeacher's assessment tools, whether formative or summative, can be further divided into two other categories: objective and subjective. Objective assessment tools have a clearly defined right and wrong answer. They are used to assess a student's knowledge of particular facts and figures that are universal. Examples of objective assessment tools are true/false and multiple-choice questions. Math problems are almost always objective assessment tools, as they leave little room for interpretation. Objective assessment tools are the easiest to design and grade and, therefore, are the more common type of assessment tool.Subjective AssessmentSubjective assessment tools require a little more creativity and opinion on the part of the student. These are questions, papers or tests that rely on the presentation of arguable material. Essay questions, research papers and argumentative speeches are examples of subjective assessment tools. They can often reveal more than an objective assessment tool because they allow for more than just memorization on the part of the student. The student's tastes, personality and approach to education can more effectively be observed with subjective assessment tools. Objective and subjective teachers' assessment tools often are used in conjunction, such as a test that has a section of true/false questions and then an essay question at the end.