Assessment and Evaluation

Think of a lesson plan from your licensure area. Knowing that assessment is an integral part of teaching, explain at least four informal and formal assessments that you will use in your lesson plan to provide you with feedback and involve the students in assessing their own learning.

Considering a 1st grade lesson I just developed for a science education class, 
I could definitely use:

• pencil-paper formal assessments
• performance assessments
• short quizzes/tickets out the door - formative checks during lessons
• other alternative assessments

During this lesson, I begin by reading a book about the butterfly life cycle (i.e. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc.). I then discuss with the students what they know about butterflies, whether they know what a life cycle is, etc. I then introduce these concepts. After that, the students are responsible for filling out a worksheet with each stage of the butterfly's life cycle (paper-pencil assessment) and gluing various shapes of pasta onto each stage that corresponds with what the butterfly would look like in that stage of its life (performance assessment). After they finished that, I could do a ticket out the door before a bathroom break or a quick review discussion (formative check). Then, I could move into another related lesson going into a writing prompt such as: Now, create an advertisement for a butterfly you create. Take us through its life cycle and tell us why your butterfly is better than others (alt. assessment). 

Consider norm referenced assessment and criterion referenced assessment. Are there advantages to both? Are their disadvantages?

I think there are advantages to both. You do want to see that the students are meeting a normal level of development; however, I feel like you also want to use the standard of their work as well. I think the disadvantages are that norm referenced assessment isn't always going to be the best for certain students. If you have an inclusive classroom, you will have to make adaptations, etc. for your class and norm referenced assessment may not always be the best option to assess them. Also, if the students are doing well on one assessment and not on the other, it would produce unreliable results and might mean the validity of one of the assessments is not good.