To help us work towards our school goal of improving our understanding and practice of assessment, my principal has provided our staff with a copy of Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Doing it Right - Using it Well, by Jan Chappuis, Rick Stiggins, Steve Chappuis, and Judith Arter. As I make my way through the book, I will be summarizing my learning as a means of organizing my thoughts and getting clarification on particular ideas.
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| Classroom Assessment for Student Learning Cover. (Accessed 2016). Uploaded to Amazon; Pearson Education. Available online at: https://www.amazon.ca/Classroom-Assessment-Student-Learning-Doing/dp/0132685884 |
Chapter 4 - Sound Design
*teachers vary assessment methods to offer choice and/or accommodate learning preferences but methods should match the learning targets
Assessment Options
1 ) Selected Response
- chose the correct response from a previous list
- multiple choice, true & false, matching, fill-in-the-blanks
- judged correct or incorrect
2 ) Written Response
- construct a response based from a prompt
- short answer, extended response
- judged by a scoring criteria/rubric
3 ) Performance Response
- observation of real-time demonstration or products
- playing an instrument, lab reports, wood shop creations
- judged by a scoring criteria/rubric
4 ) Personal Communication
- structured or unstructured interactions
- participation, student journals, interviews/conferences
- good for determining misunderstandings and giving immediate feedback
*You can determine what type of assessment method matches particular types of learning targets by using this table
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| Chappius, et al. (2012). Figure 4.3 Target Method Match. Classroom Assessment for Student Learning, pg 94. |
Assessment Development Cycle
1 ) Determining Users & Uses
- who will use the results?
- how will they use the results?
- is it formative or summative? (if formative, remember the 4 steps from Ch. 1)
2 ) Specify the Intended Learning Targets
- determine if its knowledge, reasoning skill or product (see Ch. 3)
3 ) Select the Appropriate Assessment Match
- see image above
4 ) Determine an Appropriate Sample Size
- "how much evidence is enough?" "how long should the assessment be?"
a ) assessment purpose
- an exit slip to guide tomorrow's lesson requires less evidence than a final exam
b ) nature of the learning target
- the broader the target, the more complex and the more evidence that is needed
- procedural knowledge is short, competent writing is complex
c ) assessment method
- you may need more multiple choice questions because they only ask limited information at a time
- written response questions can cover more so you need less of them
d ) the students
- use professional judgement; you know when students "get it" and which ones need more evidence
- this is more relevant during formative than summative
Assessment Blueprints
- helps ensure the assessment is measuring what you need it to: validity
- example table
Learning
Target
|
Target
Type
|
Assessment Option
|
Total
%
|
*try to account for potential sources of bias or distortion; good planning helps but you'll never be able to address all of them with all students
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| Chappius, et al. (2012). Figure 4.7 Potential Sources of Bias and Distortion Common to All Assessment Methods. Classroom Assessment for Student Learning, pg 112. |
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I WANT TO KNOW:
What exactly differentiates between an extended writing assessment and a performance task?
Lab reports are under performance... not writing. The chapter also includes term papers as performance tasks where I would have thought of them as writing tasks.
Please leave your thoughts below :)