Group items tagged

Descriptive feedback should be about the particular qualities of student learning with discussion or suggestions about what the student can do to improve.

Who will use the results to inform what decisions?

four categories of learning targets

which assessment methods are most likely to produce accurate results for different learning targets.

Do the results provide clear direction for what to do next?

For instance, if students will be the users of the results because the assessment is formative, then teachers must provide the results in a way that helps students move forward. Specific, descriptive feedback linked to the targets of instruction and arising from the assessment items or rubrics communicates to students in ways that enable them to immediately take action, thereby promoting further learning.

Assess learning targets requiring the "doing" of science with a multiple-choice tes

meeting student, teacher, and district information needs

Using misinformation

groups of students

unprecedented overflow of testing

In math

which require students to use their knowledge to reason and problem solve

What information do the decision makers need

use of clear curriculum maps for each standard

instructional hours sacrificed to testing will return dividends in the form of better instructional decisions and improved high-stakes test scores.

provide information about student progress not typically available from student information systems

high-stakes tests were common in schools

if the teacher wants to assess knowledge mastery of a certain item, both selected-response and extended written response methods are good matches

Students learn best when they monitor and take responsibility for their own learning.

For example, suppose we are preparing to teach 7th graders how to make inferences. After defining inference as "a conclusion drawn from the information available," we might put the learning target in student-friendly language: "I can make good inferences. This means I can use information from what I read to draw a reasonable conclusion." If we were working with 2nd graders, the student-friendly language might look like this: "I can make good inferences. This means I can make a guess that is based on clues."

What are the essential assessment conditions?

No Child Left Behind

The assessor must plan to manage information from the assessment appropriately and report it in ways that will meet the needs of the intended users,

If we don't begin with clear statements of the intended learning—clear and understandable to everyone, including students—we won't end up with sound assessments.

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students

Specific, descriptive feedback linked to the targets of instruction and arising from the assessment items or rubrics communicates to students in ways that enable them to immediately take action, thereby promoting further learning.

build balanced systems, with assessment-literate users

Creating a plan like this for each assessment helps assessors sync what they taught with what they're assessing.

In the case of summative tests, the reason for assessing is to document individual or group achievement or mastery of standards and measure achievement status at a point in time.

inform instructional improvement and identify struggling students and the areas in which they struggle

Teachers should design the assessment so students can use the results to self-assess and set goals.

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.

Feedback to students can use the language of the rubric:

Although it may seem as though having more assessments will mean we are more accurately estimating student achievement

The assessor

Given the rise in testing, especially in light of a heightened focus on using multiple measures, it's increasingly important to address two essential components of reliable assessments: quality and balance.