Has your child ever come home bursting with excitement, ready to show something they learned? It could be a magic trick or a new jump on their bike. Either way, they are showing you what they know!
In education, this type of expression of understanding is known as an assessment. We usually think of assessments as boring or intimidating. But they don’t have to be. There are many ways to assess kids outside of the traditional testing routine that keep the excitement and creativity thriving as your child learns.
Two Ways Teachers Check In
There are two main types of assessments used in education: formative and summative. While they both work to provide details on how well your child knows the information, they differ in a few ways. A summative assessment is given at the end of a large portion of learning or the end-of-learning checkpoint, including an end-of-unit test or final exam. Formative assessments happen after a student completes a smaller piece of learning. These are often done daily and help to guide instruction.
Beyond the Grade: What It Means for Your Child
It’s helpful to know the difference between the two assessments. As a parent, you are likely more interested in what the assessments mean and how they help your child. Summative assessments help provide a big picture. Formative assessments are low-stakes daily check-ins that offer a snapshot of your child’s progress and help guide instruction and support.
Assessments should be used to gather information. For example, if your child does well on a vocabulary test, you and your child have confidence that when they apply those words on a different assignment, they will also do well! If your child has less success on the vocabulary test, it lets you know where to support them before moving on to the next assignment.
Turning Practice into Play
You can use this knowledge at home by building on what your child is already doing! In our respiratory system course, students demonstrate the process of diffusion using simple materials like candy, water, and a plate!
Here are some other ways to make learning and assessments more fun and effective:
- Building a model
- Designing visuals such as flowcharts or diagrams
- Create a scenario to help your student apply learning
- Give a Presentation
- Do a Demonstration
Assessments, The Know Yourself Way!
At Know Yourself Academy, we do not just create assessments; we create opportunities. With the use of research-based teaching and learning strategies, our courses are developed to support and build your child’s love of learning.
Know Yourself Academy provides a low-stakes environment to assess a student's knowledge through the use of:
- A self-paced learning platform
- Assessments that connect to real-world scenarios and applications
- Assessments as project-based learning
- Online tools that track and measure progress in real-time
- Virtual standards alignment
- Progress monitoring with real-time feedback
- Easy-grading tools
- No more scary final exams. Just fun, interactive ways to apply and show what your child knows. Interested in learning more? Explore Know Yourself Academy and watch your child shine.
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