At Free Kids Academy, assessment is an ongoing, organic part of instruction. When a child struggles to understand something, we respond by changing our instructional techniques or going back to teach previous concepts as needed. If the child continues to lack understanding, we can wait until he or she is developmentally ready, or let it go. All children should feel successful.
Rather than traditional means of assessment, we focus on performance-based assessment that includes open-ended questions, exhibits, demonstrations, hands-on execution of experiments, computer simulations, independent projects, journals, portfolios, and so on. This type of assessment encourages learners to utilize high-order thinking, problem-solving skills, and express their knowledge on the material in their own ways using various intelligences.
We share students’ progress through regular feedback in communication folders, face-to-face meetings, written reports, and presentations.
