Article Reflection: 50 Cats by Angelo and Cross

Article Reflection: 50 CATS by Angelo and Cross The article I read is “50 CATS by Angelo and Cross”. After I read the title of this article, two questions jumps out in my mind—-“what is CATS? ” and “who are Angelo and Cross? ”. With my strong curiosity, I choose to read this article. Before I read it, I decided to find the answer of these two questions first. CATS is the abbreviation of Classroom Assessment Techniques. Angelo and Cross are authors of a book named “Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers”.

After read the description of this book, I learned that the book is aims to offer advises on classroom assessment for teachers at all levels. The book include what classroom assessment entails and how it works; how to plan, implement, and analyze assessment projects; twelve case studies that detail the real-life classroom experiences of teachers carrying out successful classroom assessment projects; step-by-step procedures for administering the techniques; practical advice on how to analyze your data; the fifth classroom assessment techniques is also a part of this book.

Classroom assessment is the process of collecting information from students about their growth as learners. It also gives a feedback of the effectiveness as teachers. The purpose of classroom assessment is to improve the quality of students’ learning. The result may help teachers to adjust their teaching strategies. The fifty classroom assessment techniques are divided into three main parts: techniques for assessing course-related knowledge and skills; techniques for assessing learner attitudes, values, and self-awareness; techniques for assessing learner reactions to instruction.

Each of them has been subdivided depend on different situations. In a word, they are in detail and everyone of them are very speedy and flexible. They often consume only a few minutes to assess students and get easy and quickly feedback. As future teachers, I think it is necessary for us to learn these fifty classroom assessment techniques. In these fifty classroom assessment techniques I think we should master the techniques for assessing course-related knowledge and skills for basic level.

In this section, the assessment has been divided into five subsections. I pick up five of them which are easy to use and quick in response to analyze. 1. Background Knowledge Probe This technique is designed for assess students’ prior knowledge. They are suppose to be short, simple questionnaires which is used at the beginning of a class and serve as pretest. It also can be used as posttest after they finish a chapter. For instance, the instructor may ask students to list courses they have already taken in the relevant field as a pretest.

Or, after the instructor teach a certain unit he or she may ask students to write relevant knowledge they have learned which is recalled by this course. That is serve as posttest. Such probe may require students to write short answers or give them multiple-choices to do just in no more than ten minutes. This technique will bring the background knowledge of students and help teachers to determine the appropriate level to begin a lesson. It’s a feedback on the range of how the students prepared for particular class.

I believe this technique can be used any time to assess changes in students’ knowledge. The same question can be used in different situation as well. Minute Paper Maybe minute paper is the most frequently used technique. Under this technique, it provides us two questions: What was the most important thing you learned during this class? And What important question remains unanswered? Students are required to write a brief respond in two or three minutes.

Personally I think this two questions can show teachers whether their instructional goals get by the students, meanwhile, this is also a way for students to remind themselves to have a general evaluation of what they have learned. Give them an opportunity to think what they want to know and what they still confused about. In this way students get awareness of self-assessment unconsciously. One-Sentence Summary This technique is aims to assessing students’ skill in synthesis and creative thinking. Students should answer the questions “Who does what to whom, when, where, how and why? about a given topic and write a long summary grammatical sentence include all of these points. In this assessment teachers can get the information about how’s the students’ ability of logical thinking and their ability of summarize. Directed Paraphrasing Instructor will ask students to paraphrase part of a lesson for a specific audience and purpose, using their owe words. This is especially useful for pre-professional students who will be asked in their careers to translate specialized information into language that clients or customers can understand.

This technique allow teachers to examine students ability of transforming information into form that can be understand by certain audiences. It can be work in the classroom put students into groups and ask them to paraphrase a lesson and transforming to each others. Student-Generated Test Questions Students are asked to write two or three questions and accompanying correct responses. This assessment will give teachers information about what kind of questions are meaningful to students and how they answer the question is also shows how well the students learned, its a feedback of their study as well.

I will continue read this article and analyze all of the fifty classroom assessment techniques. It’s a good modal for teachers to learn and give students appropriate assessment in different situations. They are valuable assessments not only for assessing knowledge of students, but also provide teachers quick feedback and serve as an evidence to adjust their lesson plan or rubric. We can incorporate these classroom assessment techniques into every class session.