Assessment in BCSD
What is the purpose of assessment?
The purpose of assessment is to give students opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of content, concepts and skills. Assessments also provide students with feedback to improve their learning and feedback to teachers in order to guide instruction. Teachers use a range of assessments to accomplish this, from something as simple as asking a question during a discussion, observing a student complete a math problem, to an end-of-unit test. Both formal and informal assessments provide students, teachers, parents, schools, and the District with valuable information about student progress. New York State Education Department (NYSED) also measures how well students meet state learning standards. Students participate in NYSED assessments that measure progress towards NYS standards, including the grades 3-8 ELA and Math tests, grades 5 & 8 Science tests, Regents, SATs, ACTs, and AP exams. Each form of assessment differs in purpose, frequency, duration, and content.
How do we inform parents of assessments?
The home-school partnership is critically important to each child's success. Ongoing communication, both formal and informal, lead to a successful parent-teacher partnership. Throughout the school year, formal communication on your child's progress is reported through report cards, parent-teacher conferences, and NYS testing reports via ParentVue. Beginning during the 2023-24 school year, parents will have access to their child's STAR screening assessment results.
What are the Different Types of Assessments?
There are different types of assessments used for different purposes in education. Learn more about these assessment types here.
Universal Screening Assessment: Universal screening assessment tools are used BEFORE learning in order to determine if a student is performing within grade level norms or might need additional supports. A universal screener is a short, quick assessment that provides us with an initial understanding of a child's preliminary skills.
Diagnostic Assessment: While not diagnostic like in the medical field, a diagnostic assessment in education provides us with more granular information about specific areas of strengths and weaknesses that help inform targeted instruction for each child's learning profile.
Formative Assessments: Formative assessments are given to students DURING learning in order to understand how well a student is acquiring the content and skills being taught. Formative assessments are administered during the instructional process in order to provide feedback loops between teacher and student. Formative assessments might include daily classwork, quizzes, projects, and presentations.
Summative Assessments: Summative assessments are given to students AFTER learning has taken place. These assessments provide a teacher with cumulative information about how well a student has retained information or achieved mastery of content and skills taught throughout a unit or course of study. Summative assessments might include an end-of-unit assessment, course final exam, portfolio, or final project.