Informal Assessment

Assessment is a necessary component of teaching and learning. Without a powerful assessment program it is impossible to recognize whether students have learned, whether teaching has been efficient, or how optimal to address student learning needs. Since the main aim of this paper is assessment from the student’s perspective in the Moroccan high schools, this article is reviewing the literature on assessment in order to define, discuss and explain the terminology and key concepts in addition to offer an overview of the phenomena most specifically “testing reading” which is the main focus of this research paper

The terms in the field of assessment are sometimes confusing. According to brown (2004), “Assessment is a popular and sometimes misunderstood

Informal assessment takes place when the teacher collects data to use for supporting an ongoing activity for example in the end of a session the teacher might ask the students questions about what was just taught. The answers to the questions will provide the teacher with an idea on how much the students have grasped their lesson, concept or skill in question. Informal assessment can be applicable also at the individual level by observing a single student’s reactions and outcome while completing tasks assigned in class. On the other hand, formal assessment is more systemically planned techniques and procedures to measure the student’s skills and knowledge. We are all familiar with the formal assessment such as: quizzes, tests, projects. But, is formal assessment the same as test? We can consider all tests to be formal assessment yet, not all formal assessments can be considered as tests because formal assessment can take a wide range shapes for example the observation of a student’s participation in class is a form of formal assessment that can’t be called a test

There are mainly two types of functions in assessment: formative and summative. Formative assessment is not about grades or marks. It can be done either by the students in the form of self-evaluations or peer evaluations or just by the teacher. According to Greenstein (2010), “Formative assessment encompasses a variety of strategies for revealing students’ understanding, allowing teachers to pinpoint and address any impediments to a student’s progress.…Teachers use formative data to decide how much and what kind of learning, support, and practice a student needs to reach the goal. When formative assessment is employed before, during, and after instruction, both teachers and students have a measure of progress” (p.2). This statement shows that formative assessment, also called assessment for learning, is the process of monitoring the students learning to provide a continuous feedback that can be used to improve the learning experience by making them aware of their strengths and weaknesses and focusing on areas that need more work. In the meantime, formative assessment helps the teachers to recognize where students are struggling and repair these problems