Classroom Assessment

I think this article posted a good reminder about classroom assessments through the idea of probes. As the article states, "(Probes) are assessments for learning, not assessments of learning". I think too often schools are primarily focused on the summative assessment aspect of learning and less focused on monitoring student learning. As a teacher, I believe that it is essential to select my curriculum based on the needs of my students. I think that this article is trying to provide a solution to the many misconceptions in the world of science in the classroom. I am interested to see what these probes actually are and how I would go about integrated them into my classroom. I wonder if they would actually work as well as they seem to be selling them in the introduction of this article.


I thought it was interesting the wording used to describe misconceptions committed by students. They use the phrase "alternative framework" to describe students misunderstandings of science. They state how maybe their alternative framework is not necessarily incorrect, it just differs from scientists. Overall, I think that it is important to use formative assessment in my future classroom to allow my student to explore their thoughts. The suggested use of probes seems interesting, though I am skeptical on how well they would actually work in a real-life classroom. They sound too good to be true. I am interested to hear the great ideas in this book and would like to know more about the given probes.