Do you know how you would answer the following teacher interview question: How do you assess student performance and success in the classroom?
Expect the interview panel to be interested in a pragmatic approach to the process of assessing your students’ performance. They will be interested in checking to determine if you are integrating performance-based assessments into the instructional process to provide additional learning experiences for students.
For instance, while it is a standard procedure for you to assess students’ performance, you may allow students to assess themselves. Doing so will provide them with the opportunity to reflect upon the quality of their work and learn from successes and failures.
Explain the process in steps and give a personal example for each:
Define the purpose of the performance-based assessment. Choose a formal or informal activity according to your defined goal. On the one hand, as a teacher, you probably use informal performance assessments all the time.
On the other hand, when you formally assess a student’s performance, you may have the student perform a task or complete a project. When you describe these, the evaluating team can see the degree to which you use collaborative learning strategies.
Define the criteria for assessment. In this step of the process, you must develop your criteria most of the time. Allow your students to participate in this process by asking them to name the elements of the project/task they would use to determine how successfully it was completed.
Ultimately, after doing the assessment, you give feedback using the information you now have. Give constructive feedback on a student’s performance, either in the form of a narrative report or a grade. While answering the panel, try to enumerate more than one means of doing this.
For instance, you can mention the checklist approach, the narrative report, the rating scale approach, or even the memory approach (when you observe students performing tasks without taking any notes).
Try to prepare for this question by finding a relevant example for each step in the process. It will significantly help your interview success! Note the following example:
I often prepare a “test analysis” chart with three columns. The columns titles are: “My strengths,” “Quick review,” and “Further study.” After handing back a corrected test, I ask my pupils to identify learning targets they have mastered and have written them in the “My strengths” box. In the “Quick review” column, they list their simple mistakes and write the rest of the learning targets in the “Further study” column.
Students save a personal collection of analysis charts for tests and assignments over time and can periodically reflect on their growth. I found this method extremely useful for giving constructive feedback.
