DOMAIN B- LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature Review in Support of

Informal Assessment

Courtney Burnett
TED 690
Professor Johnson

Abstract

DOMAIN B- LITERATURE REVIEW

The following paper is a literature review of an article I found in support of informal
assessment in the classroom. The article is entitled, Informal Assessment, A story in
the Classroom. This article supports informal assessment especially in the areas of
math. The article even goes on to describe effective ways to integrate informal
assessment into the classroom.

DOMAIN B- LITERATURE REVIEW

I find myself in the classroom often gaging where my instruction needs to go
next based on the informal assessment of my students. I find this to be true
especially in the areas of math and reading. If I can visually see that they can
answer a question in math correctly, or I can see that they can read a word
correctly, I have been shown that the information is known. I know there is great
value in formal assessments as well, but I get just as much data from the
conversations I have with my students in the classroom. Formal assessments are
good for keeping track of and recording data. They are also good to see how the
students reasoning skills come into play when deciding how to answer a question
from a formal assessment. But, I found this article that supports my feelings of how
important informal assessments are for my teaching data, as well.
The article entitled Informal Assessment, A story in the Classroom, starts by
describing how we teach in the natural setting. We are constantly having
conversations with our students, asking questions and probing for knowledge. A
math teacher discovered that she can turn these natural observations into formal
assessments.. and this is a natural part of teaching. (p. 248) She states that
recording works best, which is something that would be very doable in my
classroom, because I have been provided with an Ipad from the district. The tip the
article provides is to not count on informally assessing each student each day. Make
a goal of about 4 an hour. That would easily get you through your class throughout
the entire week. For grading purposes, it has to be decided specifically what activity
will be assessed and it has to be made sure that each child has been informally
assessed in the same activity, with the same standards met.
I am not in any way suggesting that formal assessments be put aside. There
is a ton of data and much value in testing a child with a formal assessment. But I

DOMAIN B- LITERATURE REVIEW

am saying, and this article supports, that some of our student can be collected
informally. I just completed my second quarter grades that were followed by a solid
week of classroom, formal assessments and districtwide benchmark assessments.
My students were drained and I spent so many times grading the assessments
knowing the student should have done better on this portion of the test, based on
my previous informal assessment of the child. Sometimes, students get all tested
out and as a result, can shut down. This frustrates me as a teacher, because the
grade has to reflect what the formal test states, because of the data it provides,
even when I know the student has mastered that skill in our day to day classroom
activities.

DOMAIN B- LITERATURE REVIEW

Reference
Vincent, M. L., Wilson, L. (1996) Informal Assessment, A story in the Classroom. The
Mathematics
Teacher. 89(3) p. 248.