Lesson 14. Alternative types of assessment (Using portfolios Assessment) What Is Alternative Assessment?

Lesson 14.
Alternative types of assessment (Using portfolios Assessment)





What Is Alternative Assessment?
Are you craving more organic and genuine ways of observing and documenting student achievement and progress? Many educators are, particularly in our modern world of overwhelmingly restrictive and prescriptive standardized testing requirements. Fortunately, education sciences support several alternatives to traditional assessment by leveraging creativity, student involvement, and strategic curriculum development.
Alternative assessment is any classroom assessment practice that focuses on continuous individual student progress. Perhaps the best way to define alternative assessment is to say that it's the counter to traditional forms of standardized assessment. Let's take a closer look at what alternative assessment is and isn't.
Characteristics
Alternative assessment is also known as formative assessment and portfolio assessment. The characteristics of alternative assessment may include:

• 
  Usually teacher-generated, as opposed to being passed down from an administration, government, or third-party organization.
  
• 
  Takes into account the individual background and needs of every unique learner.
  
• 
  Considers the big picture of individual student progress over an extended period of time.
  
• 
  Flexible, responsive, and continually developing according to curricular objectives.
  
• 
  Takes into consideration different learning styles and preferences.
  
• 
  Allows language learners to demonstrate content knowledge and skills mastery without language barrier difficulties.
  
• 
  Highly effective for use with students who are entitled to accommodations and/or modifications.
  
• 
  Normally documented with qualitative data, such as performance descriptors, comparisons with previous work, and skills demonstration.