Why is Assessment Important?
· Important in checking for student
understanding
· Can make changes and modify
accordingly
· "Are we teaching what we
think we are teaching?"
· "Are students learning what
they are supposed to be learning?"
· "Is there a way to teach the
subject better, thereby promoting better learning?"
· When assessment works best,
it does the following:
Provides
diagnostic feedback
- What is the student's
knowledge base?
- What is the student's
performance base?
- What are the student's
needs?
- What has to be taught?
Helps
educators set standards
- What performance
demonstrates understanding?
- What performance
demonstrates knowledge?
- What performance
demonstrates mastery?
Evaluates
progress
- How is the student
doing?
- What teaching methods
or approaches are most effective?
- What changes or
modifications to a lesson are needed to help the student?
Relates
to a student's progress
- What has the student
learned?
- Can the student talk
about the new knowledge?
- Can the student
demonstrate and use the new skills in other projects?
Motivates
performance
For student self-evaluation:
For student self-evaluation:
- Now that I'm in charge
of my learning, how am I doing?
- Now that I know how
I'm doing, how can I do better?
- What else would I like
to learn?
For
teacher self-evaluation:
- What is working for
the students?
- What can I do to help
the students more?
- In what direction
should we go next?
What are some types of assessments?
·
Learning
requires problem solving to build mental models
·
What should
be assessed:
o learner's ability to organize,
structure, and use information in context to solve complex problems.
·
Standardized
tests
·
Common core
o Difficult to assess because evidence-based.
o Important to ask:
§ Is it portfolios?
§ If portfolios are a part of
evidence-based assessment, what else is necessary?
§ Reflections? Work samples? Best
work?
·
Alternative
assessments
o Examples of these measurements
are open-ended questions, written compositions, oral presentations, projects,
experiments, and portfolios of student work.
·
Authentic
assessment can include many of the following:
·
Observation
·
Essays
·
Interviews
·
Performance
tasks
·
Exhibitions
and demonstrations
·
Portfolios
·
Journals
·
Teacher-created
tests
·
Rubrics
·
Self-
and peer-evaluation
How do Rubrics Help?
·
scoring
guidelines that can be used to provide consistency in evaluating student work.
·
let students
know what is expected of them, and demystify grades
·
opportunity
to do self-assessment to reflect on the learning process
·
teachers can
grade project- or performance-based assessments consistently from
student-to-student
·
measure the
quality of a body of work
·
Team
Rubrics
o guideline that lets each
team member know what is expected of him or her.
- Shows the
quantitative value of the behaviors or actions.
- For instance:
- Did the person
participate in the planning process?
- How involved was
each member?
- Was the team
member's work to the best of his or her ability?
·
Project
Rubrics
o
lists the
requirements for the completion of a project-based-learning lesson.
- For instance:
- What is the quality
of the work?
- How do you know the
content is accurate?
- How well was the
presentation delivered?
- How well was the
presentation designed?
- What was the main
idea?
·
Sample
Rubrics
- Collaboration Rubric
for Group Work
from a high school science project, San Diego City Schools
- Oral Presentation
Rubric
from a middle school humanities project, Louisiana Voices
- Written Report Rubric from SCORE
- Math Problem-Solving
Rubric
from Utah Education Network
- Discussion
Participation Rubric (
PDF download)
from a ninth grade humanities project, School of the Future
·
websites
that offer free tools to generate your own rubrics:
SUGGESTED READINGS AND VIEWINGS
More
Edutopia.org Resources on Comprehensive Assessment:
- Edutopia's Comprehensive Assessment Core Strategy page
- Article: "Assessment for
Understanding: Taking a Deeper Look"
- Video: "An Introduction to
Comprehensive Assessment"
- Article: "Studies in Success: A Survey of
Assessment Research"
- Video: "Assessment Overview: Beyond
Standardized Testing"
- Article: "Comprehensive
Assessment: What Experts Say"
- Schools That Work Package:
"Comprehensive Assessment: A
New York Success Story"
- Article: "Toward Genuine
Accountability: The Case for a New State Assessment System"
- Article: "Measuring What Counts:
Memorization Versus Understanding"
- Article: "Assessment: No Single
Measure Tells the Story of Student Achievement"
- Package: "Reinventing the Big Test:
The Challenge of Authentic Assessment"
- Article: "10 Takeaway Tips for
Authentic Assessment"
- Article: "How you can replicate
authentic assessment in 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 months, 5 years..."
- Article: "Healthier Testing Made Easy:
The Idea of Authentic Assessment"
- Article: "Standardized Testing Fails
the Exam"
- Resource Roundup: Free Resources and Downloads
for Authentic Assessment
- Discussion Group: Assessment
- Blog: "Tame the Beast: Tips for
Designing and Using Rubrics" by Andrew Miller
- Resource Roundup: Resources for Understanding
the Common Core State Standards
High
School
- Performance Assessment
at Aviation High School in Seattle, WA
- Using a Fishbowl at
KIPP King Collegiate High School in San Lorenzo, CA
- Presentations of
Learning at High Tech High School in San Diego, CA
- UrbanPlan Project at
Alameda High School in Alameda, CA
- Comprehensive
Assessment at Mountlake Terrace High School in Mountlake Terrace,
WA
- Performance Assessment
at Urban Academy
in New York, NY
Ohio Dept. of Education website:
“What are some types of classroom
assessment and what student evidence can they generate?”
·
Closed tasks
o Multiple-choice
o True/false
o Fill-in-the blanks
o Solve (w/o showing process)
o Useful for:
§ assessing content-based standards
§ assessing of knowledge, facts,
skills or concepts
§ takes less time
·
Open tasks
and constructed responses
o Tasks with different possible
answers
o Different possible processes
o Useful for:
§ Use of processes or strategies
§ Ability to interpret info
§ Ability to apply info
§ Reasoning
§ Ability to communicate thinking
·
Performance
tasks
o Integrative tasks that yield
specific products
o Authentic assessments
o Extended projects
o Useful for:
§ Assessing ability to organize,
synthesize and apply information and skills
§ Use of resources
·
Informal
assessments
o Teacher observations
o Teacher checklists
o Conversations or interviews
o Useful for:
§ Process or strategy use
§ Reasoning
§ Understanding a topic or concept
§ Ability to communicate and
collaborate
·
Self-assessment
or reflection
o Student journals or reflection
logs
o Student checklists
o Group reflection activities
o Daily/weekly self evals
o Teacher-student interviews
o Useful for:
§ Developing student awareness of
strengths and weaknesses (metacognitive skills)
§ Show student process and
thinking/reasoning skills
§ Reveals student disposition
towards topic or learning
§ Helps identify student goals
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