Assessment Folder

Hello friends,

Right before school began, I blogged about this assessment folder that I was going to implement this school year.

I have linked with The Elementary Entourage to share tips and tricks to keep our sanity and be organized!

Four months into the school year and I find this method to be very easy to use and simple. I do not need to have tons of booklets with me when assessing my students. It has also become very easy to use for my assistant - if she is not sure the skill (or measure) the activity is assessing, she can easily go to teh reference page on the back.

This past year I tried several methods to collect my data. I tried sticky notes, a notebook for notes, pictures (which was very helpful.....most of the time ;)) and the worst for me was anecdotal notes on sheets of papers - which I would misplace and had to hunt them all over the classroom.

This week I found this amazing post on Thank God it's First Grade, where she talks about the method she uses for conferencing. It reminded me when I was doing my student teaching internship, my mentor teacher used a similar method as well. She used it for book and writing conferencing too.

Well, I think this may be the solution for my data collection dilemma. This is what I am going to use:

To create these data collection folders you'll need, folders, tape, index cards and markers. I intend to use a different colored binder for each assessment period/quarters.

I used the inside of the folders to place my index cards. I taped the bottom card first and lastly the top one. On the left side I added a label with the area to be assessed.
Note the colors next to the students' names. Each student on each small group will have a color to easier identify and find the card to be used.
The front and the back of the cards can be used for each student - I will write the date and the observation right next to it.

If the index card is full, I can easily detach it from the folder, place it in the student folder and replace it with a new one!

This is the back side. I included an overview of the entire assessment we used in the classroom. Color-coded of course!

TIP: Laminate each folder before you place the index cards. It will last longer and your front and back cover will remain intact!