1. Assessment in Education ~ What teachers need to know

2. Learn about yourself! My Favorite …3 words saying how I feel about it COLOR _________1_______ 2_______ 3_______ ANIMAL_________1_______ 2_______ 3_______ WATER _________1_______ 2_______ 3_______ Now imagine you are1_______ 2_______ 3_______ in a room: it has white walls, floor, ceiling & no windows or doors …

3. What does it mean?  Color: How you want others to see you  Animal: How you see yourself  Water: How you see your love-life  White Room: Your feelings about death

4. How can you find out how much students know/learn?  Questioning  Testing (including pre-testing)  Brain-storming  Discussions  Inventories/surveys  …

5. Be Careful of These 2 Errors:  Accepting a false hypothesis Believing a child knows something when they don’t …  Rejecting a true hypothesis Believing a child doesn’t know something when they do …

6. Careful Assessment Good Planning Quality Instruction Deliberate Reflection Ongoing Evaluation Instructional Cycle:

7. Categorizing Assessments, by:  Method of Development  Level of Formality  Instructional Purpose  Type of Grading Standards  Item Format  Degree of Authenticity  Type of Skill Demonstrated

8. Quality Control with Assessments  Reliability Test-Retest Alternate Form Split-Half  Validity Criterion Content Construct  Item Analysis

9. Questioning Levels: Bloom’s Taxonomy  Knowledge  Comprehension  Application  Analysis  Synthesis  Evaluation

10. Test Construction: General Item-Writing “Commandments”  Thou shalt not provide opaque directions to students …  Thou shalt not employ ambiguous statements …  Thou shalt not provide students with unintentional clues …  Thou shalt not employ conplex syntax in your assessment items.  Thou shalt not use unnecessarily advanced vocabulary

11. Guidelines for Writing Binary- Choice Items (True/False):  Phrase items so that a superficial analysis by the student suggests a wrong answer.  Rarely use negative statements, & never use double negatives.  Include only one concept per item.  Have an approximately equal number of items true and false.  Keep item length similar for true and false statements.

12. Guidelines for Writing Multiple Choice Items:  The stem should consist of a self- contained question or problem.  Avoid negatively stated stems.  Don’t let the length of the alternatives supply unintended clues.  Randomly assign correct answers to alternative positions.  Be careful how you use “of the above.”

13. Guidelines for Writing Matching Items  Employ homogeneous lists.  Use relatively brief lists, place the shorter words or phrases at the right.  Employ more responses than premises.  Order the responses logically.  Describe the basis for matching & the number of times responses may be used.  Place all premises and responses for an item on a single page.

14. Guidelines for Writing Short-Answer Items:  Direct questions are preferable to incomplete statements for young students.  Structure the item so that responses can be concise.  Place blanks in the margin for direct questions, or near the end of incomplete statements.  For incomplete statements, use 1-2 blanks.  Make sure blanks for all items are equal in length.

15. Guidelines for Writing Essay Items  Convey a clear idea regarding the extensiveness of the response desired.  Construct items so that the student’s task is explicitly described.  Provide the approximate time expected to complete an item – and the value.  Don’t employ optional items.  Prepare your own judgment of an item’s quality by composing a possible response before grading student responses.

16.  Score responses holistically &/or analytically.  Prepare a scoring key before judging student responses.  Make decisions about the importance of mechanics prior to scoring.  Score all responses to one item before scoring responses to the next.  Evaluate responses anonymously. Guidelines for Scoring Essay Items

17. Evaluative Criteria for Performance Assessments:  Generalizability  Authenticity  Multiple Foci  Teachability  Fairness  Feasibility  Scorability

18. Guidelines for Developing Rubrics:  Make sure the skill to be assessed is significant.  Make certain all of the rubric’s evaluative criteria can be addressed instructionally.  Employ as few evaluative criteria as possible.  Provide a succinct label for each evaluative criterion.  Match the length of the rubric to your own tolerance for detail.

19. Key Ingredients for Successful Use of Portfolio Assessments  Establish student ownership.  Decide on what work samples to collect.  Collect and score work samples.  Select evaluative criteria.  Require continual student self-evaluations.  Schedule and conduct portfolio conferences.  Involve parents in the portfolio assessment process.

20. Assessment must be … Valid evidence that will -- let educators draw inferences about specific student understandings and provide reliable evidence of students’ true abilities. Assessment is a collection of deliberate, planned, carefully constructed evidence of student learning.

21. Your Challenge …  Determine what is worthy of understanding.  What knowledge (facts, concepts, principles) and skills (procedures) will students need to perform effectively and achieve desired results?  How will you know what knowledge and skills they have?