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By Diana Eggers

One of the most important jobs a teacher has is measuring the knowledge and understanding of his or her students. Teachers can determine whether a student has grasped the concepts of a lesson in a variety of ways.

Some widely used forms of assessment include tests/quizzes, rubrics, checklists, and growth or mastery charts. The type of assessments that you use in your classroom will determine the range of tools that you'll have to aid you when you evaluate your students. The following table shows three assessment types listed at the top of the columns, with the tools that might be useful for facilitating those assessments listed below each type.

Create tests and quizzes

If you find that you're creating tests and quizzes from scratch throughout the school year, consider designing a test and quiz template. This will save you time and provide a consistent look and feel for your exams. Your test might include multiple-choice questions, essay questions, true/false questions, and fill-in-the-blank questions.

Multiple-choice questions

To make your multiple-choice questions look consistent and line up with one another, consider setting up tabs in Microsoft Office Word 2003 with a line chosen as the leader. For example, if you set the tab at 0.5" with a line chosen as the leader, your question (and answers) will look like the following example.

To set tabs with a line selected as the leader

Essay questions

Providing students with an essay question that takes up a few lines at the top of an otherwise blank piece of paper can result in a messy and hard-to-read handwritten response. To provide your students with lines on which to write the answer (making the response easier to read), insert a table.

For example, if you insert a table and format the side border as blank, when you print the test, you'll have the essay question followed by lines on which students can write their responses. If you have room, you might also put in a few extra lines with a light color of shading and text stating "(For teacher use only)." That way, you'll have a place to write your comments, too.

To create a table for essay responses

True/false questions

Using tables can also help you align questions and answers for your true/false questions. You can format your table for true/false questions in several ways.

One way is to create a table with two columns, one for answers (true/false) and one for questions. Students circle either "true" or "false," as appropriate.

To create a table

The other way to use tables in presenting true/false questions is to create a chart listing all of your questions with a blank box next to each question for students to enter their responses. Students check the appropriate box to indicate whether the statement is true or false.

To create a chart

Fill-in-the-blank questions

The forms feature in Word is perfect for creating fill-in-the-blank questions, especially if you're able to have the students complete the test on computers. When it's on the screen, a fill-in-the-blank question that uses the forms feature looks like the following example.

To create blank spaces

Design rubrics

Both Word and Microsoft Office Excel 2003 are excellent tools for designing a rubric. First, you'll want to establish your grading scale. This example will use a four-point scale.

Next, determine the number of objectives or learning outcomes that you'll be evaluating with your rubric. You should keep the number of learning outcomes to three to five for any rubric. This example uses three.

Design rubrics by using Word

First, create a table that has six columns and five rows. In the following table, the grading scale is across the top and the learning outcomes are listed down the left side. These items can be transposed if you prefer. The right column can contain a score for each outcome and a total score at the bottom. In each blank box, you'll enter the qualities that demonstrate the corresponding number on the grading for the corresponding learning outcome.

Design rubrics by using Excel

If you design your rubric in Excel, you'll follow the same guidelines as the ones for Word. It can be helpful to create the rubric in Excel and then copy and paste it into Word. If you're going to score students' work on the computer (rather than filling out a printed rubric), Excel is the best choice, because you can enter a formula that calculates the total score by adding the scores for all learning outcomes.

Create checklists

Checklists are a great way for students to determine whether they've completed all necessary tasks before turning in an assignment. You might also use a checklist to ensure that you've received all parts of an assignment. You can create a checklist easily in Word by using tabs. The following checklist was created using 0.5" tabs and a line leader.

To create a checklist

Develop growth/mastery charts

A growth/mastery chart is a table that provides students and teachers space to track progress toward one or more goals. The student and teacher select a number of "artifacts," or student work items, to evaluate in the portfolio. Then student and teacher assess the artifacts based on agreed-upon goals. The following chart might be used to evaluate a writing portfolio.

To create a growth/mastery chart

Making the grade

As you employ more assessment strategies, you'll find that some naturally align with the learning that takes place in your classroom. Rubrics, for example, are great in social studies, English, and science classes. They help students understand what you want them to focus on when they're working on projects. Portfolios help students see their own growth and are useful in just about every subject area. And tests, an old favorite, are perfect for measuring the level of mastery on specific concepts and work well for math, science, social studies, and even P.E.

Although many types of assessments and a great many tools can be useful, you'll find that the type of learning in your classroom will determine the tools that meet your assessment needs.

About the author   Diana Eggers has taught special education and is the former instructional technology coordinator for the Kent, Washington, school district, where she developed curricula to help other teachers integrate technology in the classroom. She was also the founding executive director of The Learning Space, a nonprofit organization focused on helping teachers integrate technology in the classroom. Diana currently teaches video production, computer graphics, and advanced applications of the Microsoft Office System.