ollie-afe-2020: Educational Leadership: The Quest for Quality--article - 7 views
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The assessor must begin with a clear picture of why he or she is conducting the assessment.
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bhauswirth on 30 Mar 20I feel like sometimes we get caught up on we have to assess our students on all topics. One nice thing about mastery in certain topics is with math, math concepts keep coming up in chapter 1 then in chapter 3.
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The assessor needs to have a clear picture of what achievement he or she intends to measure.
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I'm not sure that this works for science classes. In these classes, students are to be figuring out. They are not supposed to know what they are learning about until they have discovered it. I thinking that making the assessment clear at the beginning would ruin this. Now I will say that you could be clear on how students will be assessed. For example, you will have to support your claims using reasoning and evidence.
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I often wonder where this argument fits with discovery learning, and other forms of self-directed methods. Are we constraining ourselves too much here?
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"I can make good inferences.
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Student-friendly language has been a huge part of our school district. Especially when dealing with many ELL and Sp.Ed students. Also, referring to the learning target multiple times throughout the lesson. One thing I could do in my class is to put the learning target on my quizzes.
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I could also do this more/better. It does get challenging when you teach multiple classes if you want them posted on your board etc.
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I agree. I started adding hyperlinks to vocabulary.com for any words I thought they might struggle with.
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identify struggling students and the areas in which they struggle.
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This is a huge part for me in my teaching. I use our three question quizzes to allow myself to better understand misconceptions that I have over seen and to see what I need to do to better my students.
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Agree! In my economics class I do periodic checkpoint quizzes. These formative assessments have two purposes. One to check how well my students are understanding the content. And secondly, how well am I teaching the material. Sometimes the students are not getting the content, because my teaching was ineffective.
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As a "big picture" beginning point in planning for the use of multiple measures, assessors need to consider each assessment level in light of four key questions, along with their formative and summative applications1 :
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But NCLB has exposed students to an unprecedented overflow of testing.
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I agree! Testing not only causes anxiety, but it can give students the wrong impression of their abilities.
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Unfortunately over testing takes away from quality instructional time and student learning. What's really sad but all too true is that we are seeing over testing being pushed down on even our youngest learners, our 3 and 4 year old preschoolers.
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The concern of all my Special Ed students is testing. I teach them test-taking strategies, but they get to a test and can't use them.
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I don't think the act of retrieving information is bad, in fact, research says it is good. It is the importance and finality that is often attached to it that can be detrimental.
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the use of multiple measures does not, by itself, translate into high-quality evidence.
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Students learn best when they monitor and take responsibility for their own learning.
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Education has to make this happen more. I'd like to find a good way for them to monitor their learning.
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Yes, agreed! We know that this true but we need to help build this in our students. The internal motivation is hard to build!
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Taking responsibility is the key to learning. The best years to help students understand and take responsibility is middle school. They want to be in charge and they need support to do it well.
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assessment-literate teachers
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Clear Purpose
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The purpose is so important! I feel like sometimes we test just to test...and then send the results off to someone else. The kids need to understand the purpose as internal motivation is not always there.
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So important! I think about myself and the hoops we need to jump through in our lives without understanding the purpose. That purpose definitely leads to motivation.
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The purpose has to be tied to helping the students discover information about himself. How to improve? What has been learned? Then move forward.
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Teachers have choices in the assessment methods they use, including selected-response formats, extended written response, performance assessment, and personal communication. Selecting an assessment method that is incapable of reflecting the intended learning will compromise the accuracy of the results.
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This key relates directly back to the purpose of the assessment.
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From a formative point of view, decision makers at the classroom assessment level need evidence of where students are on the learning continuum toward each standard,
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This would go along with students taking ownership for their own learning....we would WANT them to want to know where they are at for individual purposes!
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Most of my formative assessments have been multiple choice or short answer quizzes. After learning more about rubrics, I would like to start using rubrics in two ways for formative assessments. One the students will do a self assessment on where they feel they are at. Then a teacher to student-conference with the rubric to see where they are at. With the end goal of making the assessment portion less stressful for my students, because they know where they are at.
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I was thinking the same thing about rubrics that you wrote here. Students would hopefully see themselves moving on the rubric as they improve their skills /learn. This should be motivating and students would know exactly what is expected.
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not only are they limited in key formative uses, but they also cannot measure more complex learning targets at the heart of instruction.
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Given the rise in testing, especially in light of a heightened focus on using multiple measures
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Although I would say this is definitely still true in the courses we teach (we still emphasize bigger, summative assessments), I think we have changed how we view student progress. Our summative assessments aren't all tests, some of them are projects or performance assessments. Those assessments are also no longer considered "one-and-done" opportunities. Students can retake assessments or make corrections, etc. to show progress in their learning even if they didn't get it right the first time. It's less focused on the final grade and instead, assessing what students have learned.
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This is great. However, when juxtaposed with having 200 students like I do, it is not always feasible to have numerous projects and reassessments. How do we change the change the way that teachers spend their day so this is possible?
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the assessment formatively—as practice or to inform students about their own progress
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I find this distinction between summative and formative assessment interesting. In our freshman group of teachers, we have a category for both formative and summative assessment. Formative is weighted at 20% and summative is weighted at 80%. So although in my courses we were taught not to grade formatives, we still assign a score to it and put it into the gradebook. Also, if formatives weren't graded, I wonder how much of them would actually be completed by students?
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This has been a goal of mine this year, to use formative assessments to help make instructional decisions in my class. It has been a work in progress, but I have seen some success. I use the information from the formative assessment to decide is it a small group that needs reteaching or is it an entire class that needs reteaching. I don't normally grade my formative assessments, but I go give them completion points. For the most part if a student sees they are not getting something, they appreciate the reteaching opportunity.
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Too often I see teachers not fully use the formative assessment data they have to intentionally inform instruction. If done properly formative assessment is very powerful. I also like the idea of giving participation points for formative assessments.
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Some teachers give 0% for formative assessments at my school. The Science department has figured out a way to have labs count as a way to assess a standard. I think practice is important and should have some weight.
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it's important to know the learning targets represented in the written curriculum.
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My school has increased its emphasis on learning targets this year. We are all using a 5D+ template to write unit plans and the learning targets are similarly broken down into knowledge targets, academic targets (transferable skills), and performance targets. I think that writing unit plans and sitting down and thinking about the individual types of targets has really strengthened the types of instruction teachers are carrying out in their classrooms. They are more familiar with the targets they want students to meet, and in turn, students are also more familiar with what's expected of them.
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I like the specific targets here. I guess I have been generalizing them for awhile. My plans would be better defined for myself and students if I focused on them more.
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Our middle school is beginning this work as well. We are trying to get a system wide learning plan template developed and going. Our goal is to help all teachers fully understand their learning targets and how they relate to student understanding. I know that all teachers look at them, but I'm not sure how many break them down to fully understand them and what students outcomes should be.
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highlight crucial words (for instance, most, least, except, not).
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I also do this on other assessment types such as short answer. I've gotten into the habit of bolding things that I want to make sure students don't forget to do. For example, they may be required to answer a question but then they need to follow that with explanation or justification. I often bold the second half so that they don't forget to include the explanation, which often highlights their thinking, which can be more important than the first half of the answer.
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I do this too. I find this is very helpful for kids. Sometimes in rubrics when going through them, I'll have kids underline or circle key words instead just to force their attention a bit. It does help.
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it is not capable of informing the student about the next steps in learning.
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It is SO important that our feedback is more than a score or letter grade if we want to emphasize progress and the ability to improve for our students.
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Agreed! And if the targets are clear and communicated to students, they should know what steps they need to take to grow! It shouldn't be a mystery!
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The purpose is to inform others—policymakers, program planners, supervisors, teachers, parents, and the students themselves—about the overall level of students' performance.
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Wouldn't that be interesting if the "we" mentioned here were all actually on the same page, wanting and assessing the same things. A common purpose. Nothing like focusing on the negative here, but all of these people are being informed in different ways and gathering different data for a different endpoint.
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The piece of policymakers is the most frustrating to me (and most likely all educators). I have always struggled with the notion that the people making the majority of decisions are not the ones in the trenches, nor do they have the background to make those. I have been pleased with the direction PLC work has gone as of late; I think this gives more valid work to inform decision making on part of the teachers.
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Do the results provide clear direction for what to do next?
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Sometimes an assessment is just an end. Information is used in the next unit, but the assessment doesn't always tell the student they are ready for what is coming next.
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Yes, and it makes me wonder why so many of us provide copious amounts of feedback on summative assessments when students do not have the opportunity to do anything with the learning and provide less feedback on formative assessments along the way when students could actually do something with that feedback.
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In the SBG system we use, which seems to evolve constantly, we don't really every get to a summative assessment. Kids are (supposed to be) constantly re-learning and re-assessing. Their results on assessment give the kids, and the teacher for that matter, a path on how to proceed.
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Our students are allowed to re-take summative assessments, so notes and conversations can assist in their learning (I guess they are not really summative then are they?)
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Using data from these assessments, schools now make decisions about individual students, groups of students, instructional programs, resource allocation, and more.
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better instructional decisions and improved high-stakes test scores.
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I see some teachers more hopeful that ISASP, with its better alignment to state standards, will be a truer indicator of success. Other teachers, however, are still so jaded toward standardized testing.
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Good point! ISASP should be a better indicator of student achievement.Some of the best indicators are teacher formative and summative tests. These are still the most useful for teachers.
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four categories of learning targets
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This is a helpful breakdown of learning targets for me. In a core discipline area like history, it's easy to forget about performance skill and product targets. But there are definitely areas where these type of learning targets are present, and knowing those areas can help me decide how best to assess.
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erode accurate results
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Annual state and local district standardized tests serve annual accountability purposes, provide comparable data, and serve functions related to student placement and selection, guidance, progress monitoring, and program evaluation
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One of our school's frustrations with the new ISASP format is that no itemization or further guidance is provided at the building/district level as to how our students performed on specific components of the test. Perhaps this will change, or maybe we're missing it, but it's difficult to program evaluate without this breakdown.
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will be capable of informing sound decisions.
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I think this is an important thing to think about. How often do we really use assessments to make changes in our instruction. When I was a student I was thankful for tests. I could cram the material into my head and once the test was over, I could forget it and move on; clearing the way for new information. As a teacher, I realize that isn't the intent, but I wonder how often we still get caught up the type of thinking. Are we assessing so we feel better about moving on or are we assessing so we can make course corrections to support student learning and understanding?
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Teachers should design the assessment so students can use the results to self-assess and set goals.
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all available assessment methods
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enable them to immediately take action
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One of the easiest ways to ensure that students respond to feedback is to design opportunities that require them to engage with the feedback and do something with the feedback, but this is frequently dismissed due to the quantity of standards and learning required of students at each grade level. Many teachers feel like they need to prioritize "covering" all the standards over students truly engaging in their learning.
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Are results communicated in time to inform the intended decisions
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I have 140 students so it can take a while to get results back to them. I know the quicker I can get the results back in their hands, the more they care about their score and the assessment. They are more likely to want to fix mistakes and learn from it. If I take too long it has a negative impact on motivation. We have to correct quickly but correctly.
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affect individuals and groups of students on the basis of a single measure is part of our past and current practice.
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assessments
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cultural insensitivity.
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clear and understandable to everyone, including students
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It is especially important that students know what the intended learning is! Unfortunately, too many students think grades are given to them by their teacher instead of earned by their work. When they don't know what is being assessed, this adds to that narrative.
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This is where it is important to have a clear rubric with student language. Students, even learning adults, need to have guidance on why they are learning so they can be assessed accurately.
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Reasoning targets
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appropriate balance of points in relation to the importance of each target
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Figure 2 clarifies which assessment methods are most likely to produce accurate results for different learning targets.
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Specific, descriptive feedback
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This is so important. Feedback that is too general, not clear and/or not descriptive enough to lead to concrete actions on the students part limit their effectiveness as an instructional tool.
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I agree. Providing complete and clear feedback in language the student can comprehend is key to helping them move forward.
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Inherent in its design is the need for all assessors and users of assessment results to be assessment literate—to know what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate uses of assessment results—thereby reducing the risk of applying data to decisions for which they aren't suited.
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For each assessment, regardless of purpose, the assessor should organize the learning targets represented in the assessment into a written test plan that matches the learning targets represented in the curriculum.
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This is something that I have been improving on and is not something I knew about when I first started teaching. I actually used to think that a good test was a simple repeat of information that I told the students during the unit. I wrote tests over the "facts" that I taught them. Wow, have I learned a lot. Now in my PLC we take the time to organize the learning targets and make sure that our assessments match the learning targets in our curriculum.
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The classroom is also a practical location to give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate what they know and can do, adding to the accuracy of the information available from that level of assessment.
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My administrator and I were just talking about something similar. We are trying to work on grading practices in our building. We both agree that students need multiple opportunities to show what they know and that assessments shouldn't be viewed as a one a done item that is checked off. We even got into the idea if a student is assessed once and gets a 58%, a second time and gets a 78% and third time and gets a 98% do you average all those scores, or do you think to yourself, "It took them three times but they finally go it, let's celebrate, here's your A"?
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If we don't begin with clear statements of the intended learning
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In our district, there has been a major focus on writing clear, concise learning targets as "I CAN" statements to introduce learning. These are posted throughout the lesson, and are written out on the assessment for our kids. In my own teaching, it has really focused my attention to the task at hand, and I've eliminated a lot of the fluff I had in there previously. I'm only assessing the things I want them to learn/do...not the extra stuff that just kind of happened.
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Performance skill targets, which ask students to use knowledge to perform or demonstrate a specific skill
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This is 75% of grading in PhysEd (well, at least our PhysEd program). We have gone away from sport-ed, and moved to almost completely fitness-based education. We grade on heart rate data, specifically time spent in the Target Heart Rate Zone. Our goal is to make competent movers to enhance health beyond the school setting.
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they involve where and how teachers can improve instruction—next year
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This has been tough to do when results from assessments don't come back to us in a timely matter. Side note: Not that PhysEd is targeted area, but I'm so glad Iowa isn't a high-stakes testing state. I cannot imagine having that pressure on top of balancing all of the other things asked of us. I cannot imagine teacher morale being high.
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I agree - it is so tough to improve instruction - next time when the data arrives after instruction has begun. This makes the need for multiple types of assessment an vital part of the educational setting.
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quality and balance
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through the use of clear curriculum maps for each standard
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The assessor must begin with a clear picture of why he or she is conducting the assessment.
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e assessor must begin with a clear picture of why he or she is conducting the assessment. Who will use the results to inform what decisions? The assessor might use the assessment formatively
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Do the results provide clear direction for what to do next?
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At the level of annual state/district standardized assessments, they involve where and how teachers can improve instruction—next year.
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Inherent in its design is the need for all assessors and users of assessment results to be assessment literate—to know what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate uses of assessment results—thereby reducing the risk of applying data to decisions for which they aren't suited.