CAT : Classroom Assessment Technique

Introduction 

Either you are teaching English grammar or other English language skills, the more you know about what and how your students are learning, the better you can plan and design learning activities to structure your teaching in more effective way. This is the main purpose of CAT( classroom assessment technique) which refers to all non-graded tasks, activities or tests used by the teacher to determine how well and how much the students are learning. This technique is very important for teaching English as a foreign language ( TELF) class or teaching English for students of other languages ( TESOL) class. It can provide the teacher with formative evaluations of the teaching-learning process that can be used to modify/improve activities, adjust teaching methods, and improve students’ learning.

Why should we use CATs?? 

In communicative approach of teaching English language, classroom assessment differs from tests and other forms of assessment in that it is aimed at course improvement, rather than at assigning grades. The primary goal is to better understand your students' learning and so to improve your teaching.

• Provide fast and short feedback of the teaching-learning process. 
• Build strong teacher-students rapport which would increase the efficacy of teaching and learning.
• Gives the teachers deep insight to the students’ different learning styles and to his/her own teaching way. 
• Help students become better monitors of their own learning. 
• Provide useful information about student learning with a much lower investment of time compared to tests, papers, and other traditional means of learning assessment.
  
• Provides "food for thought" for instructors as they reflect on their teaching and on a particular course at the end of term. 

How should we use CATs??

A good use of CATs can help the teacher find out how the students are learning which, in turn, can help the teacher prepare and design suitable tasks and activities based on the students’ needs. 

1. Decide what you want to assess about your students’ learning from a CAT.
2. Explain to your students the purpose of the activity, then conduct it.
   
3. Focus on skills or abilities that are important to success in the course.
4. Select an important topic that your students have recently studied in your class and that you expect them to learn to summarize. 
5. Make up questions to assess students' self-confidence in relation to these skills or abilities.
6. Choose a technique that would provide with effective feedback on your teaching style, and the students’ learning styles, and can be easily implemented in your class.
7. After class, review the results, determine what they tell you about your students’ learning, and decide what changes to make, if any. 

Examples of CATs. 

1. One-Sentence Summaries challenge students to answer the questions "Who does what to whom, when, where, how, and why?" about a particular topic. This technique allows you to find out how concisely, completely, and creatively students can summarize a large amount of information on a given topic. The format allows you to scan and compare responses quickly and easily. 
   
2. The Muddiest Point technique. It is just about the simplest technique one can use. It is also remarkable efficient, since it provides a high information return for a very low investment of time and energy. The technique consists of asking students to jot down a quick response to one question
3. Memory matrix. In this technique, students fill in cells of a two-dimensional diagram for which instructor has provided labels. For example, in a music course, labels might consist of periods (Baroque, Classical) by countries (Germany, France, Britain); students enter composers in cells to demonstrate their ability to remember and classify key concepts.
4. Directed Paraphrasing. In this technique, the teacher asks students to paraphrase part of a lesson. This technique allows faculty to examine students' understanding of information and their ability to transform it into a form that can be meaningful to specific audiences. 
5. Minute paper. No other technique has been used more often or by more college teachers than the Minute Paper. This technique ­­provides a quick and extremely simple way to collect written feedback on student learning. To use the Minute Paper, an instructor stops class two or three minutes early and asks students to respond briefly to some questions. The students have to write their responses on cards and hand them to the teacher in specific time.
6. Course-Related Self-Confidence. This technique can be done by surveys to assess your students' levels of confidence in their ability to learn the skills and content of your course. This is especially important to know in some specific contexts: students' mathematical skills, their ability to speak in public, their athletic ability, etc. When you know the confidence levels of the students, and what affects their confidence, you can build assignments that build confidence.