an overview of assessment design

A PHILOSOPHY OF ASSESSMENT

(and evaluation)

Peter Gow

Assessment/P. Gow/BCDS 2006

Assessment IS curriculum

(and vice versa)


Why assess?Assessment has several purposes, listed here in

order of importance: To improve student learning, by giving students

meaningful feedback on their mastery of skills and content knowledge

To improve teaching, by providing teachers with a means of measuring and/or describing individual and aggregate student learning

To facilitate communication about ongoing learning To audit student performance


What does assessment look like?

Assessment is a broad range of methods and techniques. A few examples:

elaborate long-term, interdisciplinary, collaborative projects

essays paper-and-pencil quizzes standardized multiple-choice tests The assessments you use should be based on the

skill(s) or knowledge that you mean to assess.


How would you? Assess students’ knowledge of the parts of a cell Assess students’ understanding of how the parts

of a cell function Assess students’ understanding of the functions

of the three branches of the United States government

Assess students’ ability to read and understand a novel in Spanish

Assess students’ mastery of a list of vocabulary words


Or? Assess students’ understanding of Chinese

culture Assess students’ ability to solve equations

containing inequalities Assess students’ ability to apply the mathematical

notion of “inequality” to a real-world situation Assess students’ understanding of the Civil Rights

Movement of the 1960s Assess students’ readiness to study calculus


Or? Assess students’ ability to understand a graph Assess students’ ability to write persuasively Assess students’ intellectual curiosity Assess students’ ability to make connections

between the film American Beauty and The Great Gatsby (the book, of course)

Assess whether your students understand the utility of the binomial theorem

EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT


Effective assessment

INTENTIONALLY FOCUSES ON WHAT MATTERS: It asks students to present evidence of the important learning you want to have taken place.

“Assess what you value; value what you assess”—Grant Wiggins.


Effective assessment HAS NO SECRETS: It begins with a clear

statement of the things being assessed and the criteria by which assessment is being made; these should (of course) match the important learning goals.

PROVIDES FEEDBACK: It gives the student clear direction as to how to improve future performance, and it gives the teacher information with regard to individual and group learning.


Effective assessment CONNECTS AUTHENTICALLY TO CONTENT:

The work asked for addresses plausible and authentic problems or questions that relate to the desired learning. The more “real” the problem, the more engaged students are likely to become.

FITS THE LEARNING: The method matches the type of learning you want to have taken place; you wouldn’t assess a student’s French accent by means of a written quiz.


Effective assessment IS FAIR: The method is designed to give

each student an equal opportunity to succeed.

IS SAFE: The method is designed to encourage questioning and risk-taking.

IS CREDIBLE: The method is designed to relate in a clear and explicable fashion to the total learning experience.


Effective assessment IS VARIED: It comes in a variety of flavors

for each unit, topic, or course. The broader the range of assessments given, the more complete and useful a picture of learning will be developed—and the greater the range of individual student strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles that will be tapped and revealed.


Effective assessment IS TIMELY: Evaluation takes place close to the

learning experience, and feedback and critique are received in a time frame that allows students to use it to improve performance.

IS MANAGEABLE: The average human teacher can use it in a timely and effective fashion; writing may be a valuable skill, but the solution to every math problem 1-29 (odd) doesn’t need to be presented in essay form.


Effective assessment Follows a trajectory based on the cognitive

complexity of the learning being assessed. Use the ASSESS-O-MATIC to plan the assessment tasks for a unit or to design a text or examination based on an ascending hierarchy of complexity.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT IN

ASSESSMENT DESIGN


AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT:Engage students and raise the stakes

Write a letter to…(and mail it) Field study…(find a consulting expert) Imagine you are … Solve this problem… Debates… (bring in an outside judge) Write for or present to an actual audience

(parents, outsiders, peers) Community role play (“Our town/school has

to solve the problem of…”)


More reflective assessment Portfolios—gather a student’s work, use it as the

basis for improvement, ask the student to reflect; invite an audience (parents, advisor) to share the reflection

Regular self-assessment modules or exercises at the end of each topic, unit, or term—written or conference-based

HINT: Use your stated criteria—your “standards”—as the basis for this self-assessment.


PERFORMANCE STANDARDS These are the criteria by which the quality of

student learning will be assessed: What will this learning look like? What will be good evidence of this learning? What will excellent performance look like?HINT: Ask your students for help!! (“What are the

characteristics of an excellent essay/math homework/oral presentation?”)

ALSO: Check out the Parker “Criteria for Excellence”—great language to use!


RUBRICS in two slides Evaluation rubrics are a tool combining

stated standards for LEVELS of performance with clearly delineated CATEGORIES of performance

E.g., They show students what excellent work is

supposed to look like and tell them what parts of the work are important


Rubrics are Easy to create--ask your students to describe

excellent work or to tell you what should be important on a certain kind of work

Easy to use--they save time and eliminate some decision-making about what matters Danger! Posters, videos, …

Great ways to give clear, specific feedback to students--and they help the teacher see what is working, as well


Why grades? To provide a record of student performance To provide evidence of a progression of

learning To sort out a student’s performance against

a standard To give students FEEDBACK on their

performance


Weighting grades Give a piece of work a weight proportionate to its

relative degree of importance and difficulty Quizzes worth less than tests Big projects worth more than homework Use simple grading system (check, check-plus) for simple

work

Take a tip from your college professors, and assign specific weights in advance

Don’t forget to weigh in class participation


Just for Middle School… The dreaded grid:

Think of a “standard”--what you want students to be able to do

Then think of how to describe progress toward that standard:

Beginning Working Approaching Meeting

and at last, “Proficient”


Rubrics to grades Top level of performance = A Satisfactory but nothing special = C(+) Really unsatisfactory = NP Not usually a mathematical equivalency--

12/16 may not = 75% or C; may be closer to B-

You gotta do what works for you The 16-point rubric trick


Keeping a grade book Your gradebook is PRIVATE Your gradebook should allow plenty of space to

describe performance tasks and to keep track of each student’s grades

If using a paper gradebook, skip lines between kids

Consider keeping a more descriptive kind of record--a notebook with a page for each student; comment on work alonmg with grading it


“Averages” If you use a spreadsheet or “electronic grade

book,” make sure you have an escape clause--just because a number was arrived at by a computer calculation doesn’t mean that number is “true” or objective--because the grades you entered are subjective

Remember the “feedback” function--grades send a message to students; it’s okay to have that message be an encouraging one


Evaluating effort Danger, danger! (Did you ever fool anyone?) Evaluate effort based on clear standards that you

feel comfortable about--work completed, details included, …--against clearly stated criteria

You probably can’t really ever know how hard a kid is working in other ways

an overview of assessment design

Education

effective assessment

student

grades

students

work

learning

performance

feedback