Assessment

Record any episodes of discourse that reveal how a teacher assesses during instruction, and show how the teacher used this assessment to alter the instruction. Try to include at least five examples.

My CT realized after a check for understanding that the students do not have the grasp on radicals that he expected them to. He then spent the warm up of the next lesson discussing radical multiplication.

I asked the students what property they thought applied to two angle measures. When the students replied that they were parallel, I had a tangent where I explained specifically what parallel means and why two angles could not be parallel.

My CT did a warm up involving finding the area of certain shapes. Upon realizing that many of students finished the warm up much more quickly than usual, he spent less time discussing area than he originally planned to for that lesson.

My CT wasn't sure if the class needed to spend more time studying integrals so he gave the class a quiz over methods of integration to see what he should spend the next few days focusing on.

I gave the students a warm up involving real world examples of trig ratios. Upon seeing that many of the students used the wrong reference angle, I explained how I try to "put myself into the problem" when doing word problems.


Interview your CT to find out the following information: 
a. What formal methods do they use to assess student understanding (e.g., written exams, quizzes, projects, oral exams, homework, etc.)? 
For summative assessment we use unit exams. For formative assessment I used to give weekly quizzes. Now I instead try to give frequent short checks for understanding (CFUs). These are better for telling what the students learned that day though aren't as good for determining overall retention of the unit material. 
b. What methods do they use to formulate grades for their students (i.e., How do they actually calculate grades including how they weight various assignments and whether they use electronic means for calculating)? 
I try to look at how much learning is involved and knowledge demonstrated in each assignment and give it a reasonable weight. I always grade for correctness and never completion though I allow students to make corrections for full credit. The district determined that 80% of a students grade must come from summative exams. This percentage may even be increased if it would improve a student's grade.
c. What formative in-the-moment assessments do they do? When do they do these? How do they use the feedback from these assessments?
To see if the students want or need another example I typically ask for a thumbs up/thumbs down from the. I like using personal white boards to have students solve a problem, though they often end up copying from their neighbors. Although it's not quite "in the moment" I find CFUs to be the most helpful. It's also important to call on random students instead of just those that raise their hand. This gives a better picture of what students really know.

Based on your observation and interview, how are you thinking about assessment in your own classroom and what techniques might you use that will help you achieve your goals? 
I think the key thing is the last point about calling on random students. So far I usually just call on whichever students raise their hand to answer the questions. If I use this to assess what the class knows, I'll always get a biased result. I think in my own classroom I will use the "Popsicle" method of writing students' names on Popsicle sticks and pulling them at random. As a bonus, this should also help me with learning my students' names.