ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at alternative assessment techniques. Informal assessment involves classroom interactions during which teachers observe their students' behaviors. Questioning students is very common classroom practice. Teachers ask students questions for a wide variety of reasons. At times teachers use questions as a simple tool to keep students involved in the lesson. At other times, teacher questions are designed to elicit students' current understanding of a concept in order to provide a good starting point for an explanation or lesson. Informal assessment, like formal assessment, works better when we plan it. Informal assessment is an integral part of our teaching, and should, therefore, be well integrated into our lesson plans. Our informal observations and questions need to be largely driven by our instructional goals and objectives. We have to be able to choose which behaviors we will observe while attempting to maintain reliability (consistency) and validity (observing the appropriate behaviors).
