How Do Assessment Prompts Promote Learning?

Bill Blynt
Feb 23, 2009

Assessment Prompts are just one of the many new additions to the Learning-Focused Strategies Model. Learn more about Assessment Prompts in the version 7 Learning-Focused Strategies book: Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons.

It is often difficult to determine if students understand the content or have mastered a skill being taught in a classroom. As lessons unfold, and students become involved, questions develop to which a teacher must respond. These questions may or may not be related to the learning objectives. Although these questions reflect interest in the topic, they may begin to move the lesson into a new direction. To help keep lessons focused on the intended learning outcomes, it is recommended that teachers create, as part of their lesson plan, critical questions that they will ask students at pre-determined times. These questions, known as assessment prompts, should be aligned to the intended learning outcomes of the lesson, reflect the priority of the instruction and serve as a formative check for understanding. The questions should be answered by all students utilizing some type of activity that is designed to prompt a high level of engagement, serve as an opportunity for the student to summarize their learning and be easily checked by the teacher to determine mastery of the content or skill. The information garnered from these assessment prompts will assist a teacher in determining their next step in the learning process. The results reflected in the student responses to the assessment prompts allows a teacher to make 'mid-lesson' changes to their instructional plan to accommodate student needs.

The timely use of assessment prompts should be tied to the attention span of the student audience. Research tells us that the brain can only sustain intensive thought for so long. Students will take a mental break when their attention span is exhausted. Rather than letting them determine when and what they will do during this break time, the use of assessment prompts and the corresponding activities designed by the teacher will structure this time. Managing a classroom is a difficult job. In order to manage the allocated learning time most effectively and get the most from the students, a lesson plan must include this series of assessment prompt questions. These assessment prompt questions must be crafted carefully. If the prompts are aligned to instruction, the student responses will provide the teacher with evidence as to the degree of understanding experienced by their students. To attain a strong match these prompts must be crafted prior to the lesson. They are too difficult and too important to develop as the lesson unfolds. Due to the nature of classroom dynamics, instruction can take unexpected turns. The use of these pre-determined questions and corresponding activities can assist a teacher in keeping the lesson on task and provide evidence that students have attained the intended level of mastery.

In addition to keeping the lesson on task and serving as formative assessment, the series of assessment prompt questions and corresponding activities serves as distributed summarization or practice. The assessment prompts should be questions that are aligned to the lesson essential question. The response to this series of prompts provides students with substantial information or practice and helps them organize the various elements found within the lesson. This should provide them with required knowledge to successfully answer the lesson essential question posed at the beginning of the lesson. Answering the lesson essential question serves as a final check for understanding and a structured process for students to connect and bring meaning to the new information or skill taught in the lesson. It can be predicted that students who are able to respond correctly to the assessment prompts and answer the lesson essential question thoroughly will experience success on any future related summative assessment task.

Check out Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons to learn more about assessment prompts.