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7 Assessing STEM Learning among English Learners
Pages 207-250

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From page 207...
... . Assessment of STEM subjects, as with other academic areas, can be separated into two broad assessment approaches.
From page 208...
... Black, P., Wilson, M., and Yao, and English learners in guide schools. Perspective, 9(2-3)
From page 209...
... The second section examines what is known about ELs and classroom assessment practices for the STEM disciplines, including teacher preparation and credentialing. ENGLISH LEARNERS IN LARGE-SCALE STEM ASSESSMENT PROGRAMS Legal mandates to include ELs in large-scale assessment programs are intended to ensure that states produce indicators of academic achievement for ELs.
From page 210...
... A potentially unfortunate consequence of these requirements is that they may have unintentionally promoted practices that do not distinguish between the characteristics of developing English as a second language and learning the formal and academic aspects of English language encountered in content areas. States were required to adopt standards that targeted knowledge and skills in mathematics and English language arts deemed necessary to access and succeed in college (e.g., Common Core State Standards [National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010]
From page 211...
... . The second development is the creation of new English language development or proficiency (ELD/P)
From page 212...
... . Legal definitions of English language learners (e.g., as students who speak a language other than English at home and who may not benefit fully from instruction due to limited proficiency in the language of instruction, as contained in NCLB)
From page 213...
... . Given the new requirements in Every Student Succeeds Act for states to adopt standardized, statewide EL entrance and exit procedures and criteria, more states are moving to adopt entrance and exit criteria focused squarely on the English language proficiency construct that can be applied consistently by schools and districts across the state.
From page 214...
... A study found that at least 70 percent of released National Assessment of Educational Progress science items for Grades 4 and 8 provided contextual information, both in the form of text and illustrations. Correlation data suggest that some of those contextual characteristics influence student performance (Ruiz-Primo and Li, 2015; see also Martiniello, 2009)
From page 215...
... If the item is more difficult for the sample of ELs than for the sample of non-ELs in spite of the fact that their overall test scores are similar, that case is considered as evidence that the item functions differentially for the two populations -- it is biased
From page 216...
... . While this procedure has been available for several decades, the extent to which it is used routinely in large-scale assessment programs and with respect to the heterogeneity of the samples of students compared is unclear.
From page 217...
... . Thus, limited proficiency in English should not be assumed to be entirely removed as a source of measurement error in large-scale assessment programs simply because testing accommodations are used with ELs.
From page 218...
... For example, NCLB legislation mandated that states measured adequate yearly progress in reading, science, and mathematics, and report 5  The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium distinguishes between universal tools, designated supports, and accommodations. Under Smarter Balanced's framework, most EL-related accessibility resources are considered designated supports.
From page 219...
... Contributing to this limitation is the fact that no EL population sampling frameworks are available that support institutions and researchers in specifying and drawing representative samples of ELs based on critical sociodemographic variables. Perhaps the most important aspect yet to be properly addressed in reporting and documentation is heterogeneity in English language proficiency and how content area achievement performance covaries with English proficiency.
From page 220...
... CLASSROOM SUMMATIVE AND FORMATIVE STEM ASSESSMENT WITH ENGLISH LEARNERS In this section, we focus on the micro-level assessment that occurs during instruction in STEM classrooms (see Figure 7-1) , specifically on what is known about effective classroom assessment of the STEM disciplines for ELs.
From page 221...
... naturally occurring in the "real-time talk" between emerging bilingual students. Many of the students who were successfully engaged in interactive classroom activities in English were otherwise deemed to be struggling with English language proficiency and reading on state-wide standardized assessments.
From page 222...
... These purposes of classroom assessment contrast with formative assessment that instead may comprise both formal and informal observations of student work and student discussions, student self- and peer assessment, and teacher analysis of student responses to in-the-moment questions or preplanned probes, among other activities (e.g., Ruiz-Primo, 2011, 2017)
From page 223...
... In another initiative, the Gates Foundation-supported Mathematics Assessment Project successfully supported classroom summative assessment task adoption and design by secondary teachers.6 However, there is scant literature on the effectiveness of classroom summative assessment practices in STEM specifically designed with ELs in mind. Some studies have reported on classroom assessment strategies, although few reported findings address the question of effectiveness.
From page 224...
... Important for science construct validity, there were no differences in performance on the ONPAR tasks and the traditional assessment for non-ELs and ELs with high levels of English language proficiency. A different science assessment initiative by Turkan and Liu (2012)
From page 225...
... She modified existing writing tasks by adding visual supports and dividing prompts into smaller units. Using a pre-post test design, Siegel was able to document that ELs with high levels of English language proficiency, along with their non-EL peers, scored higher on the modified classroom assessments.
From page 226...
... Classroom Formative Assessment of STEM with English Learners Formative assessment involves gathering data or evidence of student learning as learning occurs so that teachers and students can benefit from the information generated during real-time instruction (i.e., short cycle formative assessment) or after reflection for modifying later lessons or future curricula choices (i.e., medium or long cycles)
From page 227...
... or the abstractness of many concepts. Mixed-methods research conducted with science teachers of secondary-level general education students has found that written scaffolding (e.g., "focusing" sentence frames such as "What I saw was________" and "Inside [the balloon]
From page 228...
... as they learn the STEM disciplines. Third, formative assessment can foster students' agency in their STEM content learning, through a key focus on self-assessment and peer assessment made by formative assessment approaches (Heritage, 2013a)
From page 229...
... The TODOS: Mathematics for ALL initiative conducted a series of research studies on the effectiveness of the interactive interview as a means of uncovering students' mathematical understanding. In one study, four 6th-grade Spanish-English bilingual students (their English language proficiency status was not reported)
From page 230...
... This not only helps develop students' English language proficiency, but also works to further their explanations of "their understanding of cause and effect in order to further their content knowledge" (Slater and Mohan, 2010b, p.
From page 231...
... This small-scale qualitative study can only be suggestive of the impacts of formative assessment implementation on science and language learning, but it revealed that, over time, formative assessment was more frequently adopted and enabled teachers to identify gaps between current levels of student science and language understanding and the desired learning goals, as well as documented increased student engagement and talk during science lessons over the same time period. In a recent review of formative assessment practices in science instruction, Gotwals and Ezzo (2018)
From page 232...
... Learning progressions are useful to formative approaches to assessment because they can provide the necessary details of how student thinking about a domain develops over time with instruction and experience with tasks and thus guide teachers in their choice of what next to teach and in their feedback to students on what next to learn. There is variation in the design of learning progressions; some are hypothesized incremental developments in a domain often based on syntheses of research on children's conceptual knowledge, whereas others are empirically derived from authentic student performances (see Briggs et al., 2006)
From page 233...
... Moreover, in contrast with state and professional organizations' standards for mathematics and science, many learning progressions or trajectories are not tied to specific grades or to a particular scope and sequence for learning, which is an important consideration for implementation with ELs who may have different pathways to arrive at successful STEM content learning. The learning of ELs with strong literacy skills but still emerging oral English skills, the learning of newcomers with extensive schooling experiences in their first language, or the learning of ELs with interrupted schooling may all be better understood with a learning progression of a specific domain (e.g., proportional reasoning, force and motion)
From page 234...
... . In a review of learning progressions in science learning (including example progressions for buoyancy, atomic molecular theory, and tracing carbon in ecosystems)
From page 235...
... There is also a space for her to write the next steps she wants the student to take. Once she has made notes, she uses the Dynamic Language Learning Progression to determine the "best fit" so she can decide on next steps.
From page 236...
... examined proportional reasoning in mathematics and language progressions in tandem. The language progressions for word-, sentence-, and discourse-level features had previously been empirically derived from both ELs' and non-ELs' oral and written performances on explanations tasks for the Dynamic Language Learning Progressions (DLLP)
From page 237...
... . Until more research is conducted on the validity of learning progressions in effective instruction and formative assessment approaches with ELs, the implementation of STEM and language learning progressions remain a promising practice with ELs.
From page 238...
... on their ELs' STEM learning (Chrzanowski, 2015; Lyon, 2013)
From page 239...
... . SUMMARY Important improvements are needed if large-scale assessment programs and classroom assessment practices are to produce accurate indicators of ELs' STEM achievement and if these indicators are to effectively inform policy and practice.
From page 240...
... For teachers, learning progressions used as an interpretive framework for formative assessment have highlighted the need for greater STEM knowledge on the part of teachers to be able to work well with learning progressions used in formative assessment. Lastly, although teacher certification exams have improved in recent years in their coverage of important constructs and the integration of academic language, their coverage of the knowledge, skills, and abilities to provide socially and culturally responsive instruction to ELs and of current EL classroom assessment is unclear.
From page 241...
... . The role of language learning progressions in im proved instruction and assessment of English language learners.
From page 242...
... . English language learners' conceptual understanding of fractions: An interactive interview approach as a means to learn with understanding.
From page 243...
... . Framework for English Language Proficiency Development Standards Corresponding to the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.
From page 244...
... . Science and language for English language learn ers in relation to Next Generation Science Standards and with implications for Common Core State Standards for English language arts and mathematics.
From page 245...
... . Linguistic complexity, schematic representations, and differential item functioning for English language learners in math tests.
From page 246...
... . Assessing English language learners' content knowl edge in middle school classrooms.
From page 247...
... . The impact of language characteristics in mathematics test items on the performance of English language learners and students with disabilities.
From page 248...
... . Developing testing accommodations for English language learners: Illustrations as visual supports for item accessibility.
From page 249...
... . Issues in Assessing English Language Learners: English Language Proficiency Measures and Accommodation Uses: Literature Review (Part 1 of 3)
From page 250...
... , Language, Literacy and Learning in the STEM Disciplines: How Language Counts for English Learners (pp.


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