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6 Opportunities for Better Assessment
Pages 65-82

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From page 65... ... IMPROvEMENT TARgETS Laurie Wise began with a reminder of the issues that had already been raised: assessments need to support a wide range of policy uses; current tests have limited diagnostic value and are not well integrated with instruction or with interim assessments, and they do not provide optimal information for accountability purposes because they cover only a limited range of what is and should be taught. Improvements are also needed in validity, reliability, and fairness, he said. Read the entire page →
From page 66... ... That money, plus savings that winning states or consortia could achieve by pooling their resources, together with potential savings from such TABLE 6-1 Average State Development and Administration Costs by Assessment Type Assessment Type N Mean S.D. Min Max Annual Development Costs (in thousands of dollars) Read the entire page →
From page 67... ... instructionally relevant interim benchmark assessments; and (3) formative assessments that are embedded in instruction. Read the entire page →
From page 68... ... TABLE 6-3 Numbers of Items of Each Type in High-Quality Assessment by Design Assessment Type Short Extended Multiple- Constructed- Constructed Choice Response Response Performance Performance Subject Items Items Items Event Task Mathematics 25 2 2 2 2 (1 in grade 3) (0 in grade 3, (0 in grade 3, 1 in grade 4) Read the entire page →
From page 69... ... Improved Cognitive Analysis Wise noted that the goal for the common core standards is that they will be better than existing state standards -- more crisply defined, clearer, and more rigorous. They are intended to describe the way learning should progress from kindergarten through 12th grade to prepare students for college and work. Read the entire page →
From page 70... ... Another benefit would be increased potential for establishing assessment validity. Test results that closely map onto defined learning trajectories could support much stronger inferences about what students have mastered than are possible with current data, and they could also better support inferences about the relationship between instruction and learning outcomes. Read the entire page →
From page 71... ... It would be better, he said, to have data that provide a finer measure of 500 450 400 Reading Scale Scores 350 278.8 288 ELLs 300 254 262.3 235.6 230.2 222.7 217.3 250 former ELLs 192.6 200 non-ELLs 150 100 50 0 Age 9 Age 13 Age 17 FIgURE 6-1 Average reading scores for current and former ELLs, and non-ELLs on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. NOTE: ELLs = English language learners. Read the entire page →
From page 72... ... Linquanti discussed a program called the Formative Language Assessment Records for English Language Learners (FLARE) , which identifies specific targets for language learning as well as performance tasks and instructional assessment supports based on them: see Figures 6-2 and 6-3 (see http://flareassessment. Read the entire page →
From page 73... ... Gary Cook, principal investigator for FLARE Language Learning Targets, © 2010 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. FLARE is a 3-year formative assessment grant project (2009-2011) Read the entire page →
From page 74... ... Gary Cook, principal investigator for FLARE Language Learning Targets, © 2010 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. FLARE is a 3-year formative assessment grant project (2009-2011) Read the entire page →
From page 75... ... Moreover, she noted, even students with severe cognitive disabilities can learn much more than many people realize, as recent upward trends in theoir performance on NAEP suggest. Thurlow noted that universal design, as described by the National Accessible Reading Assessment Projects of the U.S. Read the entire page →
From page 76... ... The opportunity to have more continuous monitoring of student progress that could come with a greater emphasis on formative assessment, for example, would clearly be a significant benefit for students with disabilities, in her view. Similarly, computer-adaptive testing is an attractive possibility, though it will be important to explore whether the algorithms that guide the generation of items account for unusual patterns of knowledge or thinking. Read the entire page →
From page 77... ... , which is designed to be conducted over days or weeks, depending on how it is integrated into other instruction, students are asked to perform tasks that include: listening to an online radio news report and taking notes on its content; evaluating websites that contain relevant information; reading articles about the topic and writing responses and other pieces; using a graphic organizer to manage information from different sources; and working collaboratively to develop an informational poster. Many of the tasks are primarily formative assessments, but a subset can be used to provide summative data. Read the entire page →
From page 78... ... 2. Technology-based assessment should model good instructional prac tice for teachers and learning practice for students by including the tools that proficient performers typically use and reflecting the ways they repre sent knowledge. Read the entire page →
From page 79... ... Online human scoring makes it possible for monitors to track the performance of raters and flag those who are straying from rubrics or scoring too quickly given the complexity of the responses. As noted earlier, he said, progress has also been made with automated scoring of short text responses, essays, mathematics equations or other numerical or graphic responses, and spoken language. Read the entire page →
From page 80... ... It will include benchmark interim assessments as well as end-of-course assessments, and the state has positioned itself to move forward quickly with other options, such as computerized teacher evaluations, as they consider the implications for them of the Race to the Top awards, adop tion of the common core standards, and other developments. Read the entire page →
From page 81... ... The state will do the same with the new online test, Pickett said, using mobile computer labs -- and plans to use the labs to intro duce state legislators to the new technology as well. Among the features Delaware is incorporating in its new assessment are items in which students will create graphs on the screen and use online calculators, rulers, and formula sheets. Read the entire page →
From page 82... ... STATE ASSESSMENT SYSTEMS Participants noted other challenges, including the fast pace at which new devices are being developed. Students may quickly adapt to new technologies, but assessment developers will need to be mindful of ways to design for evolv ing screen types and other variations in hardware, because images may render very differently on future devices than on those currently available, for example. Read the entire page →

From page 65...

... IMPROvEMENT TARgETS Laurie Wise began with a reminder of the issues that had already been raised: assessments need to support a wide range of policy uses; current tests have limited diagnostic value and are not well integrated with instruction or with interim assessments, and they do not provide optimal information for accountability purposes because they cover only a limited range of what is and should be taught. Improvements are also needed in validity, reliability, and fairness, he said.

6 Opportunities for Better Assessment Pages 65-82

6 Opportunities for Better Assessment
Pages 65-82