The Many Forms of Assessment

Informal vs. Formal Assessment

Informal: An informal assessment is unlike a test or quiz as it is an everyday assessment of how your children are doing and learning in your class. It's nothing they can study for but more so just something a teacher should do everyday to see where their kids are. One way to do this would be to have every child keep a journal where they explain the stories and plays we read in class. I wouldn't always be quick to grade on their grammar (but still giving feedback) and instead be more interested in how they interpret the stories, if they remember each character's name and how well they remember what we read that day.
Formal: Formal assessments are unlike informal assessments because students are aware of the assessment and are given time to study for it. I could give formal assessments once a week on vocabulary we pick out as a class from our readings and other vocabulary I find important or that pertains to what we were reading that week. The test could also include questions about the readings and character analysis.

Paper-Pencil vs. Performance Assessment

Paper-Pencil: These assessments are exactly what they sound like. They're assessments on paper. While it seems that a lot of teachers try to shy away from these and think "outside of the box" on how to assess their kids it's hard to beat a good ole' quiz or test. I could use paper-pencil assessments in my class by giving vocabulary quizzes, worksheets (filling in paragraphs with vocab. words), and reports on books and plays we've read.
Performance: Performance assessments are different from paper-pencil assessments because a student would get up in front of the class and give a presentation instead of writing out what they know on a test or quiz. I could use performance assessments in my class by having students get up in front of the class and give presentations on the readings or have them act out plays we've read in groups to show that they have an understanding of what the stories and plays were about.

Traditional vs. Authentic Assessment

Traditional: Most traditional assessments would come in the form of paper-pencil assessments. A traditional assessment that I would use in my class would be vocabulary tests. I could have a test every week that went through the vocabulary we learned. Or I could give essay tests in class where the student is expected to write an essay in class on a subject discussed or even a prompted essay where I come up with the prompt and see how each student performs.
Authentic: I know that up until this assessment I've described myself having an english class of sorts but this assessment is easier for me to describe as having a sign language class. Authentic assessments aren't written essays or tests that a student can study for but instead a chance for the child to apply what they've learned in real life experiences. This would be easily applied in an ASL class by teaching ASL grammar and vocabulary and at the end of the year taking a field trip or requiring the student to go to an after school assignment. The assignment? A deaf chat! They are held in malls or  coffee shops usually and the students could go and use their newly learned language with a deaf person!

Standardized Tests vs. Teacher-Development Assessments

Standardized Tests: Standardized tests are used a lot in classrooms as its easier to use them than come up with tests each year over a subject or book that you require to be mastered or read. Basically, these tests are just published and available for teachers to use in their classrooms. I know that I would use these on books that I had my students read every year and the vocabulary that was I picked for each week (not counting the vocab. we would pick out from readings together).
Teacher-Developed Assessments: Tests that go over what we have specifically gone over that year in class would have to be teacher-developed. These tests would consist of the vocabulary we picked out as a class, symbolisms that we discussed for each book or play and basically just different things we learned specifically that semester. This also applies to an ASL class as our tests couldn't always be standardized because maybe we learned more signs or got excited talking about specific points of deaf culture and I would quiz my students differently on these topics.

Criterion-Referenced vs. Norm-Referenced Assessments

Criterion-Referenced: A criterion-referenced assessment is basically a test that shows how a student stacked up compared to a predetermined standard. I'm sure that many teachers use these in their classrooms just as I would. I could use these tests after every book we read. Throughout reading the book we could discuss the meaning of the book, symbolisms and their meanings and then after the book is finished they could take the test to see if they understand the meaning and if they can understand the symbolism and why it means what it does.
Norm-Referenced: While trying to think of a way to use this in a classroom I remembered how a favorite teacher and another chemistry teacher used this assessment and we all really enjoyed it. At the beginning of the semester we were told that we would have a test on the Periodic Table where the sheet is blank and we have to fill it in..no hints, no clues just a lot of studying. We studied them off and on all semester and studied at home as well. During the semester there would be quizzes for different parts of the table and everyone's grade from the two classes would be posted until the end of the year when we, after making team shirts and doing fun activities, took the test and saw how we compared to the other Chemistry class. It was fun because it was competitive and it also helped the two teachers see how all the seniors (they did it for all semesters) compared to each other. I think that doing something like that would be a good way to perform a Norm-Reference and it's way more fun than filling in bubbles on a worksheet.