1. Types of Tests

3. Evaluation vs. Assessment
What is an evaluation?
What is an assessment?
Give an example of each.

4. Evaluation
Evaluation focuses on grades and may reflect classroom components other than course content and mastery level. These could include discussion, cooperation, attendance, and verbal ability.
American Evaluation Association: evaluation involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products, and organizations to improve their effectiveness.

5. Assessment
Assessment focuses on learning, teaching and outcomes. It provides information for improving learning and teaching. Assessment is an interactive process between students and faculty that informs faculty how well their students are learning what they are teaching. The information is used by faculty to make changes in the learning environment, and is shared with students to assist them in improving their learning and study habits. This information is learner-centered, course based, frequently anonymous, and not graded.

6. Differences Between Assessments & Evaluations Content adapted from: Angelo, T and Cross, K.P Classroom assessment techniques a handbook for college teachers. Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint, San Francisco, CA. Pp 427.
Dimension of Difference
Assessment
Evaluation
Content: timing, primary purpose
Formative: ongoing, to improve learning
Summative: final, to gauge quality
Orientation: focus of measurement
Process-oriented: how learning
Product-oriented: what’s been learned
Findings: uses thereof
Diagnostic: identify areas for improvement is going
Judgmental: arrive at an overall grade/score

7. What are the four types of teacher assessments?
What are the three types of reference assessments?

8. Types of Teacher Assessments
Formative & Summative
Objective vs. subjective
Referencing Assessments:
criterion-referenced,
norm-referenced,
ipsative)
Formal and informal.

9. Formative & Summative Assessments
Meghan Hoffman Formative vs Summative assessments
Rick Wormeli: Formative vs. summative assessments
Objective assessment is a form of questioning which has a single correct answer. Subjective assessment is a form of questioning which may have more than one correct answer (or more than one way of expressing the correct answer).

10. Objective vs. Subjective Assessments

11. Criterion Referenced vs Norm Referenced Assessments
Criterion Referenced Test – Tells how well you mastered a particular skill – is pass or fail. Norm Referenced Test – Compares you to others – how well did you do compared to others in your class, your grade, your state? Example: SAT (there is not pass or fail, it just gives you a score telling you how well did compare to others). Your score is dependent on others

12. Criterion Referenced vs Norm Referenced Assessments
Criterion reference assessments
A history & design of criterion referenced assessments
Norm referenced tests vs criterion referenced

13. Curriculum Based Assessment
A (short) criterion-referenced test that is teacher constructed
Designed to reflect curriculum content
Measures mastery of basic skills
Usually academic skills such as reading,
writing, math, and readiness skills
Helps teachers prepare the important goals and objectives of the school program

14. Ipsative Assessment Formal and informal.
This is assessment against the student’s own previous standards. It can measure how well a particular task has been undertaken against the student’s average attainment, against their best work, or against their most recent piece of work. Ipsative assessment tends to correlate with effort, to promote effort-based attributions of success, and to enhance motivation to learn.
The Benefits of ipsative assessments
•Improves self-esteem and confidence by rewarding progress (particularly for those who do not achieve high grades)
Motivates learners to act on feedback
•Gives teachers and students a longitudinal view of assessment
Formal and informal.

15. Informal and formal
Assessment can be either formal or informal. Formal assessment usually implicates a written document, such as a test, quiz, or paper. A formal assessment is given a numerical score or grade based on student performance.
An informal assessment does not contribute to a student's final grade. An informal assessment usually occurs in a more casual manner and may include observation, inventories, checklists, rating scales, performance and portfolio assessments, participation, peer and self evaluation, and discussion.

16. Alternative Assessments
Measures performance in forms other than traditional paper-and-pencil, short answer tests.
They focus on what students can do without emphasizing their weaknesses, especially in test-taking skills.
Alternative assessments are not graded like standardized tests are. Rather than counting the number of right and wrong responses, these assessments give a holistic picture of a student’s abilities and highlight where further improvement is needed.
They give the student a chance to demonstrate the depth and scope of learning without being limited to narrow questions or make-or-break tests.

18. Types of Alternative Assessments
Essays – can show how a student thinks about a certain subject in more detail than multiple-choice or short-answer questions.
Portfolios Most often used as replacements for end-of-course testing, portfolios exhibit the progression of a student’s learning over time. A teacher may create a portfolio compiling student essays, lab reports, or other assignments to demonstrate learning that a standardized test may not. Portfolios are typically attached to specific learning objectives and include a reflective piece by the student. Web 2.0 capabilities have allowed students to create and post portfolios online to share with other students and their teachers.

19. Presentations/demonstrations
These activities allow a teacher to observe his students
performing the skills he is teaching. A science fair is a type of
alternative assessment, as are choral performances. A math
teacher may ask his students to design a bridge based on
hypothetical dimensions he has provided.
Authentic assessments
This method attempts to create a real-world environment for
students to exhibit their skills and knowledge. A biology
teacher may have her students identify the different
pollutants in a local stream to report to the local
environmental protection agency as an authentic assessment.

20. High Stakes Test
A high-stakes test is any test used to make important decisions about students, educators, schools, or districts, most commonly for the purpose of accountability—i.e., the attempt by federal, state, or local government agencies and school administrators to ensure that students are enrolled in effective schools and being taught by effective teachers.
In general, “high stakes” means that test scores are used to determine punishments (such as sanctions, penalties, funding reductions, negative publicity), accolades (awards, public celebration, positive publicity), advancement (grade promotion or graduation for students), or compensation (salary increases or bonuses for administrators and teachers).

21. Review:
Norm-referenced test: Compares a test-taker against his or her peers. A criterion-referenced test measures a test-taker against external criteria. An ipsative assessment in an education/learning context compares a test-taker’s results against his or her previous results or their personal best. F Curriculum based assessment – the use of assessment materials and procedures that mirror instruction in order to ascertain whether specific instructional objectives have been accomplished and monitor progress directly in the curriculum being taught.

22. Standardized Tests: Norm-referenced score interpretations compare test-takers to a sample of peers (indicates whether the test-taker did better or worse than other people who took the test).
Criterion-referenced Tests: A test that measures a person’s skills in terms of absolute levels of mastery
Standards-based assessments
Alternate Assessment – a substitute way of gathering data often by means of portfolio or performance measures
most, criterion-referenced tests involve a cutscore, where the examinee passes if their score exceeds the cutscore and fails if it does not (often called a mastery test). However, not all criterion-referenced tests have a cutscore, and the score can simply refer to a person's standing on the subject domain. EX: ACT is an example of this; there is no cutscore, it simply is an assessment of the student's knowledge of high-school level subject matter.
Because of this common misunderstanding, criterion-referenced tests have also been called standards-based assessments by some education agencies,[3] as students are assessed with regards to standards that define what they "should" know, as defined by the state.[4]