Making Assessment Strategies Work for You By Colin Slingsby, Luis Gamez, and Melissa Deutsch

Learning Targets MIT teachers will know how to create authentic summative assessments. MIT teachers will understand three ways students can effectively use self assessments to become engaged in their own learning. MIT teachers will understand three ways teachers can use efficient assessments to gauge student learning.

Authentic Assessments What is it? A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills -- Jon Mueller What does it look like? Selected Response Constructed Response Product Performance

How to create authentic assessments: Questions to ask Standards: What should students know and be able to do? Authentic Tasks: What indicates students have met these standards? Criteria: What does good performance on these tasks look like? Rubric: How well did the students perform?

Tips to think about before you begin: Choose ONE big project per unit that you would be willing to spend time grading. Allow student choice. Make sure there is a variety of topics covered. Have clear expectations. Share your rubric.

Making it easier Writing groups. Break up the project. Have checkpoints along the way that accumulate into a final synthesized product. Consider cooperative learning for a group grade.

Portfolios A portfolio contains a purposefully selected subset of student work. "Purposefully" selecting student work means deciding what type of story you want the portfolio to tell. Portfolios provide an excellent vehicle for consideration of process and the development of related skills. 3 Types of portfolios: Growth-to show change over time. Identify strengths and weaknesses. Showcase-to showcase accomplishments over time. Evaluation-document progress toward standards.

Self evaluation What is it? Students judging the quality of their work, based on evidence and explicit criteria, for the purpose of doing better work in the future. Benefits? Self-evaluation is a potentially powerful technique because of its impact on student performance through enhanced self-efficacy and increased intrinsic motivation.

Self Evaluation Chain

Nameless Voice Ask students to anonymously submit sample work to share with the class. Sample paragraphs on the overhead, a visual vocabulary card, or a ticket out the door quick write can all be samples of student work that the class or individual students can use. Ask students to write or discuss how the nameless voice is similar or different to their understanding.

Learning Contract Ask students to create and agree to a learning contract at the beginning of a unit. The learning contract can define the learning goals, the "photo album" of evidence of learning, and agreed upon activities. At numerous times during the unit, ask students to revisit the contract, record new learning or muddy points and to get feedback from you or other peers.

Letter to a Future Student At the conclusion of a unit, ask students to write a letter to a future student in the class explaining what they've learned in a unit or what to do when a text is difficult or what I've learned about my own learning that might help you, etc. Regardless of the topic, the medium provides useful feedback on student thinking and learning while promoting reflection on learning.

Assessment Techniques We looked for strategies that met three criteria: Serves as an assessment of student learning. Allows the teacher to gauge student knowledge/comprehension of the material. Can be graded efficiently.

Progressive Quiz A one-two question quiz on reading assignments given at the beginning of each class period. The instructor takes up the papers after the first quiz; returns them for the next one, etc. All questions/responses are kept on the same sheet(s) of paper. The aggregate score could be used as a test grade at the end of the semester. (This is also a good way to take attendance without calling roll. Anyone who is not there to pick up his/her paper is marked absent and gets no chance for make-up.)

One Sentence Synthesis This strategy requires a higher level thinking skill. Ask the students at the end of a class to synthesize the content of the lecture or discussion into one sentence.

Class Starter Questions For this to work successfully, it needs to be a standing assignment for each student to bring in a 3x5 card with a question already formulated as his/her admit to class. The teacher can quickly sort the cards and begin class by addressing key issues. This gives the instructor a good idea of what learning has transpired prior to the class and what still needs to be addressed.

Pro and Con Grids This simple exercise can give an instructor a quick overview of a class’s analysis of the pros and cons, advantages/disadvantages etc. of an issue of concern. Good for classes that don’t necessarily deal in absolutes.

Student Disposition Rubric

So now what do you know? Get into groups and talk. Share ideas. Any further questions?

Resources http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/self_eval.php http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy- guides/promoting-student-self-assessment-30102.html http://www.park.edu/cetl/quicktips/effectiveassess.html http://jalt.org/test/car_1.htm http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/index.htm