Assessment Power

1
Assessment Power!

• Pamela Cantrell, Ph.D.
• Director, Raggio Research Center for STEM
  Education
• College of Education
• University of Nevada, Reno

2
Teacher Efficacy

• Personal Teaching Efficacy
• If I try really hard, I can get through to even
  the most difficult or unmotivated students.
• Teaching Outcome Efficacy
• When it comes right down to it, a teacher
  really cant do much because most of a students
  motivation and performance depends on his or her
  home environment.

3

• Teacher efficacy has been linked to teacher
  effectiveness and appears to influence student
  achievement (standardized tests), attitude and
  affective growth.

4
Agenda

• Assessment Activity
• Types of Assessment
• Assessment Strategies/Methods
• Uses of Assessment
• Designing Assessments
• Constructing and Using Test Blueprints

5
Usual Assessment Question

• What did my students learn about the concept from
  the lesson?
• What we actually measure. . .
• What my students know about the concept after
  the lesson.

6
Powerful Assessment Questions

• What understandings about the concept do my
  students bring to the learning activity?
• What did my students learn about the concept as a
  result of the learning activity?

7
Three Types of Assessment
8
Many Assessment Strategies

• Student Interviews
• Questioning
• Performance Tasks
• Journalsdrawings, reflections
• Portfolios
• Concept Maps
• Pencil/Paper

9
Uses for Preassessments

• Check for conceptual understanding prior to
  starting a unit of study
• Identify naïve understandings or misconceptions
• As a tool to adjust teaching/learning strategies

10
Uses for Formative Assessment
(Generally embedded in daily instruction)

• Teachers
• Shape or inform teaching
• On-the-fly adjustments
• Check for student understanding
• Allows for diagnostic feedback
• Students
• What they currently understand
• What they still need to learn

11
Uses for Summative Assessment

• Sums learning to date
• Demonstrate learning
• Certify competence
• Grading
• Promotion
• Classification

When paired with pre-assessment, can be a tool
for identifying effective instructional practice!
12
Designing Assessments
Identify desired results
Determine acceptable evidence
Plan learning experiences instruction
13
Its All About Alignment
Identify desired results
Goals/Objectives/Standards
Determine acceptable evidence
Assessment
Plan learning experiences instruction
14
1. Identify Desired Results
15
Worth Being Familiar With
Important to Know Do
Enduring Understanding
16
2. Determine Acceptable Evidence

• How will we know if students have achieved
  desired results?
• What will we accept as evidence of proficiency
  and understanding?

17
3. Plan Learning Experiences Instruction

• What enabling knowledge (facts, concepts, and
  principles) and skills will students need to
  perform effectively and achieve desired results?
• What activities will equip students with the
  needed knowledge and skills?

18

• What will need to be taught and coached, and how
  should it best be taught, in light of performance
  goals?
• What materials and resources are best suited to
  accomplish these goals?
• Is the overall design coherent and effective?

19
Discussion

• Test Result Distribution Curves

20
Test Blueprints

• Content Domain
• Familiar20
• Important30
• Enduring Understanding50
• Cognitive Domain
• Factual Knowledge30
• Conceptual Understanding35
• Analysis/Synthesis35

21
Item Develoopment

• Variety of styles
• Multiple choice
• Short response
• T/F
• Across spectrum of difficulty
• Some differentiating questions5-10

22
Threats to Internal Validity

• Not deeply challenging
• Cuing
• Just-in-time teaching
• Implausible answer choices
• Paired distractors
• Difference in writing style

23
Looking at the Results

• Sum content domains
• Sum the cognitive domains
• Calculate item degree of difficulty
• Disaggregate student data
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Special Education
• SES

24
Closing the Loop