In this unit, you examined some assessment practices for elementary history/social studies instruction.  Review the summary of key concepts from the unit below:

• In goal-oriented assessment, teachers use a variety of formal and informal assessment methods to monitor students’ progress toward learning goals. (Brophy, Alleman, and Halvorsen, 2013)

• Teacher understanding of the purpose and outcomes of instruction helps guide the selection of both formative and summative assessment measures and how to use the data from those measures.

• Writing is an important assessment tool even in early elementary grades. Sentence frames or starters can help scaffold student skill development.

• Use student work as evidence to refine instructional practices.

• The SBAC rubrics for informative/explanatory and opinion writing can be used as learning targets, to assess student writing, and to assist in aligning instruction to the assessment.

• Carefully designed student peer-review protocols can serve as effective formative assessment tools to improve student writing.

• Assessment should be an ongoing and integral part of each history/social studies instructional unit, not an add-on.