The Role of Assessment in Teaching

Direct Writing Assessments
These tests ask students to write about a specific topic ("Describe the person whom you admire the most, and explain why you admire that person.") under a standard set of conditions. Each essay is then scored by two or more people according to a set of defined criteria.
Portfolios
A portfolio may contain one or more pieces of a student's work, some of which demonstrate different stages of completion. For example, a student's writing portfolio may contain business letters; pieces of fiction; poetry; and an outline, rough draft, and final draft of a research paper. Through the inclusion of various stages of a research paper, both the process and the end product can be assessed. Portfolios can also be constructed for math and science as well as for projects that combine two or more subject areas. Often the student is involved in the selection of what is included in his portfolio. The portfolio is sometimes used as a showcase to illustrate exemplary pieces, but it also works well as a collection of pieces that represent a student's typical performances. In its best and truest sense, the portfolio functions not just as a housing for these performances but also as a means of self-expression, self-reflection, and self-analysis for an individual student (Templeton, 1995).
Exhibitions
Exhibitions involve just what the label suggests -- a showing of such products as paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, videotapes, and models. As with direct writing assessments and portfolios, the products a student chooses to exhibit are evaluated according to a predetermined set of criteria.
Demonstrations
In this type of performance testing, students are required to show how well they can use previously learned knowledge or skills to solve a somewhat unique problem (such as conducting a scientific inquiry to answer a question or diagnosing the cause of a malfunctioning engine and describing the best procedure for fixing it) or perform a task (such as reciting a poem, performing a dance, or playing a piece of music).