Improving Urban Teachers’ Assessment Literacy through Synergistic Individualized Tutoring and Self-reflection

Abstract

Assessment literacy entails understanding and proper use of assessments based on knowledge of theoretical and philosophical foundations of the measurement of students' learning (Volante & Fazio, 2007). It includes knowledge of formative and summative assessment, classroom and large-scale assessment, key psychometric concepts (Deluca & Klinger, 2010). Assessment literacy is crucial so that educators can support and measure teaching and learning. In this reflective piece, the author provides an account of one method he is developing for fostering the assessment literacy of pre-service teachers' in an Master of Arts in Teaching program through individualized tutoring of K-6 learners that also incorporated collaborative reflection. This method was developed for a pre-service teacher education course on individualized literacy assessment and instruction.