Assessment Prompts Keep Lessons Focused

Bill Blynt
Nov 09, 2009

Assessment Prompts serve two distinct purposes in the development of an Acquisition Lesson. As indicated in the Acquisition Lesson Plan, Assessment Prompts appear as part of both the Essential Question as well as the Teaching Strategies. Although Assessment Prompts are closely aligned, they take different formats at each place.

The purpose of the Assessment Prompt with the Essential Question is to clearly identify the knowledge or skills students must know, understand or be able to do in order to answer the Essential Question. When planning a lesson, you must think about what knowledge or skills students will need to acquire during the Teaching Strategies part of the lesson in order to be able to answer the Essential Question. As you consider this issue, the answer or answers are written in the Assessment Prompt area under the Essential Question. The sequence the learning will occur is not important at this juncture in the planning process. The purpose is to be clear and focused. We suggest 3 Assessment Prompts for each lesson, but it is okay to have 2 or 4. Much more that 4 and you should consider splitting the lesson into two separate lessons. The Assessment Prompts do not need to be written as questions and can be written in the order they are identified.

The Assessment Prompts identified are transferred to the Teaching Strategies part of the lesson and provide guidance on what needs to be taught and in what order. Each Assessment Prompt is distributed within Teaching Strategies. The sequence the Assessment Prompts are shown on your plan under Teaching Strategies aligns with the sequence instruction is provided to students. Each prompt enables you to check for understanding. In the Teaching Strategies part of the lesson, it is very important to write the Assessment Prompt to include the format of the assessment (how students will demonstrate their understanding), not just list the prompt again. This formative assessment enables you to determine if students understand the information or are able to demonstrate the skill being taught. Because the prompts are focused on one element of the lesson, the response to each prompt provides you with a clear indication if students have understanding of the content to that point or not. The answers will help you determine if they can move on to the next part of the lesson or if you need to address a misunderstanding or shortcoming. While it takes teachers time to learn how to quickly document student results to Assessment Prompts, it is critical that you do create a documentation process so you have complete understanding of how each student is doing at any given time in the lesson. Again, the important thing about the Assessment Prompt and its corresponding activity during Teaching Strategies is that it be used to check student understanding of the Assessment Prompts identified under the Essential Question. The activity designed must elicit a student response that provides you with feedback regarding student progress in gaining the knowledge or skill identified necessary to answer the Lesson Essential Question.

Assessment Prompts developed as part of the comprehensive Acquisition Lesson process ensures that the lesson is focused. The activities distributed within the Teaching Strategies part of the lesson are clearly aligned to the knowledge and/or skills identified as necessary to answer the overall lesson Essential Question. A lesson utilizing Assessment Prompts keeps students on task, actively engaged and accountable for their learning.

For more information on Assessment Prompts see Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquistion Lessons.