3.+Introduction

This portfolio is a compilation of the work completed for the class Assessment of Bilingual students. All of the work presented here was created with other students, current and future teachers in mind. The assessment portfolio was created as a way to manage and display the information about assessment we have learned throughout the class. I hope as you work through this portfolio you will find something to take away with you.

What is assessment and why is it important? Assessment can traditionally be broken down into two categories, standardized assessments and classroom assessments. Standardized assessments, the most common for ELLs is the ACCESS, created by the WIDA consortium. Classroom assessments have more variety, flexibility and can be teacher created as opposed to standardized tests that are created by organizations. Some examples of classroom assessments are projects, quizzes, teacher observation and student performance activities. Assessment is important because when completed properly it measures the abilities of students. Teachers can use assessments to help guide instruction, identify struggling students and show progress. In this portfolio you will find a table of contents page that will help you navigate through the portfolio as well as an acknowledgements page. Additionally there is a discussion about the most commonly used standards in Bilingual and ESL education. On this page you will find explanations of WIDA, the Illinois Common Core Standards and the Illinois English Language Proficiency Standards as well as links to the locations of those standards. Including these standards is important to assessment because they guide our assessments of our students. Being aware of and knowing where to find the standards that the assessments you will use are based on will only help guide you in your classroom.

There are also two sections in this portfolio about best practices for ELL students. One section is about preparing for standardized tests as well as taking them and the other section is about classroom assessment. In this section you will find 10 examples of classroom assessments. You will also find a teacher-led professional development plan. This is a PowerPoint, created for this class, that talks about the issues of grading students.

The last two parts of this portfolio are more reflective than research based. The first of these is a teacher interview. I was lucky enough to be able to interview two teachers for this part of the portfolio, both Chicago teachers, one who taught for seven years and another who is a new teacher. I highly enjoyed both of these conversations and learned something different from each interview, I hope you enjoy them. I know that I will use advice from both of them as I begin my first teaching job this fall. The final section is a reflection. This page covers not just this class, but my journey as a whole, now two thirds of the way through the ESL Bilingual approval program. Teaching relies heavily on assessment to guide us, but it also relies on reflection. When we reflect as teachers we can only become better at what we do, especially when we share our thoughts and ideas with others.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me at salerno.n13@mymail.sxu.edu.