Chapter 10
- 1. Chapter 10 Assessment That Guides Instruction Nancy Dean & Jeannette Schiffbauer University of Florida The purpose of assessment is twofold: to provide teachers with the knowledge they need to plan instruction and support student learning and to provide students with the knowledge they need to become more reflective, active, and purposeful learners… Teachers need to Understand the characteristics of quality assessment Be able to describe the process and purposes of authentic assessment Design effective, authentic assessment Create and use rubrics that meet specific student needs and assignments How can teachers devise high-quality assessments that provide them with useful information about their students and their instruction? Assessments must have both formative (ongoing) and summative (final) components Students need multiple kinds of assessments Assessments should be fair and equitable People other than teachers should be included in the assessment process High quality assessment uses multiple types of texts, incorporates a variety of strategies and processes, and allows for a variety of responses Students should be involved in constructing assessments What do classroom teachers need to know about standardized testing? Teachers must help students to perform well, help parents and students to understand the tests, and effect changes in assessments as needed. 1. Helping students to perform well on the tests. Teaching skills with a variety of approaches Integrating test preparation into all instruction Making connections across instruction, curriculum, and life
- 2. Teaching learning and test-taking strategies explicitly Encouraging creative thinking Fostering collaboration 2. Helping students and parents to understand the tests. Teachers should become thoroughly familiar with the tests and how the results are reported. Parents and students need to know and understand tests scores. Parents and students should know exactly what sections of test students passed or failed. They also need to know the specific connection among scores on the high- stakes test, retention, and graduation. 3. Effective change in assessment. Teachers must wrestle with ethical issues of high-stakes testing and determine their own personal stance. What advantages can authentic assessments offer teachers and students? With authentic assessment, the focus is on learning. Authentic assessment leads to reflective instruction, which helps students to develop meaning. To guide decisions about assessment procedures teachers should ask the following questions: Why are we testing or assessing? What information are we gathering? What is it we want students to be able to do? Why should students be expected to know and use this material? How will this information direct instruction? How will this information influence students to make decisions about their own learning? How can we communicate the information and instructional decisions to all of the stakeholders? Any learning activity can be restructured as an authentic assessment of student work. Designing authentic assessment requires several steps. 1. Thinking about what processes, strategies, or skills students are expected to demonstrate. 2. Devising the actual performance task. 3. Developing the criteria and a scoring procedure. 4. The performance task itself and its evaluation by multiple evaluators.
- 3. Four examples of authentic assessments of student learning: technology to show mastery, visual demonstrations of mastery, oral demonstrations of mastery, and portfolios. Managing the Grading Load To make grading less time consuming, yet informative for students teachers should consider these suggestions: Focus grading—Rather than marking every error in a written assignment, focus on one element at a time. Monday for comments—Give comments first and grades later so that the students who value comments will have a chance to see them. Students who do not value comments receive just a grade. Code sheets—Use code for common errors. Alternative evaluators—Use parents, community volunteers, older students, or a panel of community members Writing conferences—Should be personal, pointed, and positive Holistic scoring with rubrics—Students know the expectations for the assignment, and teachers evaluate assignments with clear criteria in mind.