Using Assessment Prompts to Improve Teaching and Learning

Bill Blynt
Jun 01, 2009

Assessments facilitate learning by providing teachers with timely information on how their students are progressing.  Assessments that are administered on a consistent basis as part of regular classroom instruction can assist teachers in determining their students' progress.  Depending on the results of these assessments, teachers can make informed decisions on whether or not their students have mastered the content OR if there is a needs for additional instruction to further assist students as they work to mastery.  Creating lesson assessment prompts as part of the lesson planning process will promote the use of this type of formative assessment to influence and improve the teaching and learning process.

Course and lesson instructional goals are driven by State Standards.  As such, it becomes critical that teachers develop lessons driven by the content embedded in their Standards and build in a system to check on students' progress toward mastering these goals.  The Lesson Essential Question provides the framework for the lesson.  It is introduced at the beginning of the lesson and then used as a means to check for understanding at the conclusion of the lesson.  Critical to a student being able to answer the Lesson Essential Question is their success in understanding the knowledge and/or skills being developed during the instructional activities designed by the teacher. Creating Assessment Prompts and distributing them throughout the lesson will provide the teacher with an opportunity to monitor student progress and adjust instruction if necessary.  Student responses to these Assessment Prompts will provide teachers with meaningful and immediate feedback on their students learning progress.  Students must understand the content reflected in the series of assessment prompts in order to have accumulated the knowledge necessary to respond accurately when answering the Lesson Essential Question.

Creating Assessment Prompts should be part of the lesson planning process.  Creating prompts requires a teacher to clearly define what a student needs to know in order to answer the Lesson Essential Question.  Once identified, this information becomes the basis for Assessment Prompts that will be distributed throughout the teaching component of a lesson.  Teachers must determine the lesson sequence and align the Assessment Prompts to the instruction. Better yet, let the Assessment Prompts drive the instructional experiences! Teachers must also determine what strategy or format will be used with students as they respond to the prompt.  Finally, teachers should consider what alternative instructional strategies might be employed if student responses indicate a lack of understanding of the required content.

Assessment Prompts provide teachers with the opportunity for timely intervention during the instructional process. Student res ponses will serve as a rich source of information teachers as they monitor student progress.  This information enables the teacher to determine if it is time to move on, or if additional and/or alternative instruction must be provided.  According to the work of Thomas Guskey, "Classroom assessments that serve as meaningful sources of information....and are well aligned extensions of the teacher's instructional activities....facilitate learning by providing essential feedback on students' learning progress."  Developing lesson Assessment Prompts as part of the lesson planning process and using them for distributed summarizing or practice will increase the amount of feedback available to the teacher and more strongly align these activities with the intended lesson outcome.

Refer to Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons for more information about assessment prompts.