I spent 2 hours in my classroom today. I was filing some student work, hanging some things on my bulletin board, and downloading my social studies assessments. I've grouped a few of the chapters together, and have clear understandings I want my kids to have. The next logical question is, how are you going to assess your kids?
Last year I think I blindly looked at the assessments. I knew they existed, and used them in full or totally changed them to fit my teaching. Even more interesting is that I only casually looked at the assessment prior to my instruction. While it worked, it really wasn't my best practice. Saying that a question "is really dumb" after the fact doesn't really help you direct your instruction. Instead you craft an assessment to meet your instruction, which is ridiculously backwards not to mention short-sighted.
What am I doing now? Looking at the questions that the textbook has for assessment for the three chapters I am molding together. From there I am deciding what fits with our reading goals, as well as the big social studies understandings the kids need to walk away with. The questions that are simple recall of knowledge get dropped, and others are potentially crafted. More importantly I have the kids using the book during the assessment- using it as the text that kids will draw conclusions, evaluate information, etc (reading skills we are practicing). Huge change from a year ago- thankfully!
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