Assessment in Support of Instruction and Learning Bridging the Gap Between Large-Scale and Classroom Assessment: Workshop Report (2003) / Chapter Skim
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5. Assessment in Imporve Learning
5. Assessment in Imporve Learning
Pages 26-41
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From page 26... ...
Not all of the programs have articulated their goals in the same terms the committee had identified, but all share a commitment to using assessments to improve learning, and were seen as evidently meeting at least one of the criteria (see summary in Chapter 2, and Boxes 2-1 and 2-2~. NEBRASKA: SCHOOL-BASED TEACHER-LED ASSESSMENT RECORDING SYSTEM Nebraska is an interesting state to consider first because it had no statewide assessment program at all until 2000, and thus had the benefit of many years to observe the efforts of other states before initiating its own program.
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From page 27... ...
The state had not thought in terms of bridging a particular gap, said Roschewski, but rather had sought to focus on balancing and integrating a new element the desire for more feedback that teachers and students could use to improve learning and for information that could be used for accountability into a system without disrupting the balance it had already achieved. DELAWARE: COMPREHENSIVE SCIENCE ASSESSMENT Delaware provides another example of a program that involved a significant amount of teacher training to increase assessment literacy.
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From page 28... ...
Curriculum materials were developed, and the state focused on identifying explicit learning goals for the topics outlined in the standards. For example, a requirement that fourth graders study electricity was broken down into precise descriptions of the key concepts related to electricity that were to be mastered.
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From page 29... ...
Materials are provided to guide the development of local assessments, and exemplary assessment tools, item banks, and other resources are posted on a website accessible throughout the state. Review panels continuously evaluate assessment tools, and summer institutes help teachers keep up to date on assessment strategies.
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From page 30... ...
WestEd is using PASS to conduct research on the relationship among different assessment components, instructional practices, and student achievement, and on teachers' understanding of large-scale assessment results and the uses they make of the results in their classroom practice. Vermont teachers develop school and classroom science assessments using the methodology and learning goals of the PASS assessment.
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From page 31... ...
The reviewers work with national experts, Marion explained, and the review process has already helped those involved grapple with the real meaning of alignment, coherence, and other assessment design principles. In addition, to address the sometimes poor quality of locally developed assessments, the state formed the Body of Evidence ConsortA cut score is a score point below which performance is deemed unacceptable for a particular purpose.
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From page 32... ...
Maine had three principal goals for its assessment program, as outlined in 1997 legislation, but it highlighted as the first producing "high quality information about student performance that will inform teaching and learning." The other two goals are monitoring schools and administrative units and holding them accountable for their success at making sure students meet the state standards, and certifying that students have met the content standards. Maine was determined to meet those goals with a system that delegated a considerable amount of the assessment work to schools and districts.
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From page 33... ...
Maine, she argued, has taken a middle TABLE 5-1 Characteristics of Maine's Assessment System Primary Purpose Selected or Developed by Scored by Classroom assessment School or district assessment State assessment Assessment system Informing teaching and learning Informing and monitoring Monitoring and evaluating programs to ensure accountability Informing teaching, monitoring and evaluating, certification Individual teacher Groups of teachers and administrators Groups of administrators, and/or policy makers District assessment leadership Individual teacher Groups of teachers (and others) Scorers outside the district Both internal and external SOURCE: Maine Department of Education (2003)
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From page 34... ...
Maine considers the work it has done in professional development to be one of the key successes of the program, and cites not only improved assessment literacy, but also improved instruction and a broad-based sense of shared responsibility for the program' s success. WASHINGTON: ADAPTING A TRADITIONAL ASSESSMENT Greg Hall, assistant superintendent of assessment and research in the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Washington State Department of Education, explained that the principal purpose of Washington's assessment system is to provide the state, districts, schools, parents, and other stakeholders with evidence of how well students are meeting state standards.
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From page 35... ...
The assessment component consists of opportunities to observe student performance, through tasks that are embedded in the instructional program and linked to particular progress variables, and through "link tests," which assess similar skills in different contexts. Thus link tests provide a kind of check on the information gained through the embedded assessments; teachers evaluate both using common, generic scoring guides and examples of student work.
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From page 36... ...
, an initiative of the California-based Noyce Foundation, is made up of thirty school districts in the San Francisco Bay area that share the goal of using high-quality mathematics performance assessments to improve both instruction and student learning.2 Participating districts assess 65,000 students every year in grades three through ten. Linda Fisher, who directs MAC, and David Foster, mathematics program director of the Noyce Foundation, described the way the collaborative's assess2The MAC is one of several related projects designed to support mathematics instruction that have been sponsored by the Noyce Foundation.
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From page 37... ...
Sessions with teachers to go over the assessment data also yielded broader insights about the kinds of professional development that might best help teachers improve instruction. Fisher explained, for example, that in sessions focused on the textbooks students were using, teachers quickly identified links between the way many of them oriented the information they presented and some of the
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From page 38... ...
FACET-BASED ASSESSMENT Jim Minstrell, a former high school physics teacher in Washington state, described a system he has created for teaching physics according to a model of students' developing understanding. The facet-based system is based on the cognitive principle that students come to physics with ideas and preconceptions that teachers need to identify and build on.
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From page 39... ...
To make the system accessible to more than just a handful of teachers, Minstrell and his colleagues developed a website for Washington teachers and their students. Teachers can find elements such as preinstruction activities for eliciting naive understandings, "checkout" questions to monitor students' development, tools for interpreting and using assessment results, and other resources and support.
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From page 40... ...
The models, or templates, include tasks, formats, prompts, scoring guides, directions, and samples. The scoring and performance expectations are based on a research-based model of the way experts in particular domains think and work in their area of expertise.
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From page 41... ...
ASSESSMENT TO IMPROVE LEARNING 41 Despite the challenges it presented, the opportunity to try out MBA in Los Angeles was welcome, as the assessment's creators were very eager to find out how well the program could operate on a large scale. Initially the plan was to use MBA in four subjects at three grade levels and in two languages.
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