What is the main purpose of high-stakes testing?
Results are used to make important academic decisions
What is the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)?
It is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy (ELA)
Why are people unhappy about common core?
- lack of textbooks
- parents can’t help
- teacher evaluations are linked
What’s the difference between Formative Assessment and Summative Assessment?
Difference is that Formative assessments determine what the teachers will teach and Summative assessments will show what the students have learned
What do high-stakes testing determine?
Results are used to make important academic decisions such as:
- School funding
- Admittance to a school (CAHSIE- on this test alone determined whether students got to graduate high school)
What type of Assessment is the following:
Data gathered that allows me to guide my instruction such as a Pre-test
This is a Formative Assessment - it’s an informal way of gauging my student’s abilities. It’s often ungraded.
What type of Assessment is the following:
Data gathered to establish that students can perform and have understood the material such as Exams, quizzes, papers
Summative Assessment
Which assessment did I use for the following:
”my past students had problems with this… so please make sure you’re specific about the examples…”
Summative - I got a summed information from previous students, and I’ll inform the next students.
What is the item response of the following:
Essay questions
Constructed- Response
What is the item response of the following:
Multiple Choice questions
Selected- Response
What are the advantages to CONSTRUCTED RESPONSES?
- Reduces/eliminates guessing as a strategy
- Assesses recall instead of recognition
- Takes less time to prepare (compared to selected-response items)
- Can assess higher levels of understanding/learning
- Can assess integration of material
- We can see if a student can analyze and synthesize
Which of the 2 item responses can assess the following on an exam?
- Can assess integration of material
Constructed Response test questions
What are the disadvantages to Constructed Response tests?
- Grading is time-consuming
- Variation in answers makes it difficult to grade
- Grading can be subjective (pre-existing biases about students)
- Scores can be affected by writing skills
- Handwriting could be difficult to decipher
- Can’t adequately sample content
- May take away from the analysis and response of a topic
What are some ways to reduce subjectivity when scoring?
- Clear scoring rubric
- Anonymous
- Clear and specific instructions
Grade all responses to one question at the same time
Helps to retain consistency
Reduce bias of a student doing doing bad or good on the first question and second question
Which of the following test questions is better and why?:
- Compare and contrast the progressive and populous movement in U.S history.
- Compare and contrast the progressive and populous movement in the U.S history. In your response, be sure to a. identify the main goals of the movement, b. compare the outcomes.
- It’s more detailed and allows students to focus on something
How can we build good MC questions?
- Stem should present a single problem (no double-barreled questions)
The question is the Stem - Leave out unnecessary details in the stem
- Avoid negative language in stem
“not” “except” - Avoid double negatives
- Avoid using categorical words (all, always, never)
- Avoid using exact wording in textbook
- Include at least one good distractor
What’s the point of a distractor?
The point of the distractor between those who have a surface level understanding and a deeper understanding of the content
Ask self, “which of these are meant to distract me?”
What’s wrong with the following test question?
“According to Vygotsky, what should you avoid doing?”
It has a negative word, “Avoid”…
T or F. Multiple Choice items only assess simple learning outcomes.
False. It Can assess both simple & complex learning outcomes
Memorization and application (deeper understandings)
Which is more objective: Constructed or Multiple choice?
Multiple choice
What are limitations of Multiple choice items?
- Constructing a good item is time-consuming
- Difficult to find plausible distractors
- Not effective for measuring some types of problem solving
- Can’t assess student’s ability to analyze and synthesize material
- It can be influenced by students’ reading ability instead of writing ability
What are the benefits of Traditional tests?
- Traditional tests have the ability to evaluate student knowledge effectively
- It can help teachers figure out target areas for students in terms of content learning
- It will show what worked and what didn’t
- It has the ability to motivate and guide a student’s learning
can encourage learning and retention
What is an Authentic Assessment?
What someone might actually be doing in the real world; The authentic assessment, not the ability to take the test
What type of assessment is common in the following fields?
Art Shop Music Home economics Physical ed Internships Service and learning opportunities Math English
Authentic Assessments
