What should assessment tell you about a student

For example, summative assessments could follow from an accumulation of evidence collected over time, as in a collection of student work. The centrality of inquiry in the vision of science education advanced in the Standards provides a particularly compelling reason to take a closer look at classroom assessment, and formative assessment, in particular.

If students are to do science, not solely verbalize major facts and principles, they should engage in activity that extends over several days or weeks. Their work should be less episodic and fractured than lesson-based science teaching. A different kind of assessment is necessary, one that is designed to help students get better at inquiring into the world of science NRC, The best way to support inquiry is to obtain information about students while they are actually engaged in science investigations with a view toward helping them develop their understandings of both subject matter and procedure.

The information collected by teachers and students while the students are at work can be used to guide their progress. A teacher asks questions that may help spur thinking about science concepts that are part of the investigation and may help students understand what it takes to do work that comports with high standards.

At the end, the information may be collected and reviewed to form a basis for summative evaluations. To help design and implement an effective and efficient classroom assessment system, we offer the. Having posed these questions as a guide, it is important to note that no one blueprint or single best model exists for using assessment as a tool that, first and foremost, supports and facilitates student learning. Each teacher needs to develop a system that works for him or her.

By making explicit desirable features of assessment, these three critical questions provide a framework for achieving powerful classroom assessment. The questions and the obtained responses are tightly interconnected and interdependent and they are not new.

Based on experience, many teachers both intuitively and purposefully consider these questions every day. Attention to them is part of good teaching. Through the vignettes and discussion that follow, we hope to make features of formative assessment more explicit and, in doing so, highlight how intimately they are connected to teaching.

The seventh-grade students in Ms. K's science class are working on long-term research projects investigating their local watershed. In addition to class discussions, laboratory activities, and field trips, small groups of students are exploring various areas of particular interest and importance.

One group is surveying local industrial, agricultural, and residential areas to locate general and point sources of pollutants. Another group is examining water quality. A third group is focusing on how the local ecosystem influences water quality. During project work-time, Ms. K conducts conferences with groups of students about their projects.

In these small groups, the students share the details of their project; from content to process, Ms. K keeps herself informed on the working status of the different groups.

Information she gathers from these conferences feeds into her decisions about allotment of work time, possible resource suggestions, and areas where she can identify additional learning opportunities. She also is able to note progress that occurs throughout the project, as well as from the last time she engaged in a similar activity with students. For example, after one of the discussions, she realized that the students in one group were not connecting algal blooms to possible sources of pollutants.

She asked questions that encouraged them to explore possible causes of the burst in algal blooms, and together they devised an experiment that had the potential of providing them with some useful, additional information.

Journals kept by the students become the stimulus for regular reflections on learning and the connections between their topic to the bigger picture of the local watershed. K collects the journals weekly. The journal reflections inform her about the progress of the groups and the difficulties they are having, and so serve as a springboard for class discussion.

From reading student responses and listening to discussion, Ms. K knows that some of her students are making deeper connections, and many are making different connections. Painting the broad landscape for the entire class will give those who are struggling to find a broader context for their work and sustain their inquiries, so she decides to create an opportunity to do so.

When she is not in discussions with students, she mills around the areas where her students work, moving from group to group, sometimes asking questions, sometimes just listening and observing before she joins the next group.

She carries a clipboard on which she jots down notes, quotes, and questions that she will want to come back to with a particular student or the entire group. Through the journals, her observations, the discussions, and other assessment activities, Ms. K stays connected to the sense her students are making of their work as it unfolds.

At the very beginning of the project, Ms. K and her students started conversations about how their projects would be assessed. As a class, they cycle back through the criteria that were established, deepening understanding by highlighting exemplars from past projects and just talking through what constitutes quality work.

They share examples of visual display boards, written reports, and models from other projects. K wants to make sure that each student understands the standards that they are expected to meet.

Students chose many of the criteria by which they wish their peers to evaluate them, and, with Ms. K's help, they developed an evaluation rubric that will be ready on presentation day—now just 2 weeks away. At that time, they will be making public reports to peers, parents, and community members. The King School was reforming its science curriculum. After considerable research into existing curriculum materials and much discussion, the team decided to build a technology piece into some of the current science studies.

The third-grade teacher on the team, Ms. They selected three topics that they knew they would be teaching the following year: life cycles, sound, and water.

That winter, when the end of the sound study neared, Ms. She posed a question to the entire class: Having studied sound for almost 6 weeks, could they design and make musical instruments that would produce sounds for entertainment? R had collected a variety of materials, which she now displayed on a table, including boxes, tubes, string, wire, hooks, scrap wood, dowels, plastic, rubber, fabric and more.

The students had been working in groups of four during the sound study, and Ms. R asked them to gather into those groups to think about the kinds of instruments they would like to make. R asked the students to think particularly about what they knew about sound, what kind of sound. How would the sound be produced? What would make the sound? She suggested they might want to look at the materials she had brought in, but they could think about other materials too.

R sent the students to work in their groups. Collaborative work had been the basis of most of the science inquiry the student had done; for this phase, Ms. R felt that the students should work together to discuss and share ideas, but she suggested that each student might want to have an instrument at the end to play and to take home. As the students began to talk in their groups, Ms. R added elements to the activity. They would have only the following 2 weeks to make their instruments. Furthermore, any materials they needed beyond what was in the boxes had to be materials that were readily available and inexpensive.

She moved among groups, listening and adding comments. When she felt that discussions had gone as far as they could go, she asked each group to draw a picture of the instruments the children thought they would like to make, write a short piece on how they thought they would make them, and make a list of the materials that they would need. R made a list of what was needed, noted which children and which groups might profit from discussing their ideas with one another, and suggested that the children think about their task, collect materials if they could, and come to school in the next week prepared to build their instruments.

Some designs were simple and easy to implement, for example, one group was making a rubber-band player by stretching different widths and lengths of rubber bands around a plastic gallon milk container with the top cut off. Another group was making drums of various sizes using some thick cardboard tubes and pieces of thin rubber roofing material.

For many, the designs could not be translated into reality, and much change and trial and error ensued. One group planned to build a guitar and designed a special shape for the sound box, but after the glued sides of their original box collapsed twice, the group decided to use the wooden box that someone had added to the supply table.

In a few cases, the original design was abandoned, and a new design emerged as the instrument took shape. At the end of the second week, Ms. R set aside 2 days for the students to reflect on what they had done individually and as a class.

On Friday, they were once again to draw and write about their instruments. Where groups had worked together on an instrument, one report was to be prepared. On the next Monday, each group was to make a brief presentation of the instrument, what it could do, how the design came to be, and what challenges had been faced.

As a final effort, the class could prepare a concert for other third grades. In making the musical instruments, students relied on knowledge and understanding developed while studying sound, as well as the principles of design, to make an instrument that produced sound.

The assessment task for the musical instruments follows. The titles emphasize some important components of the assessment process. Science Content: The K-4 science content standard on science and technology is supported by the idea that students should be able to communicate the purpose of a design. The K-4 physical science standard is supported by the fundamental understanding of the characteristics of sound, a form of energy.

Assessment Activity: Students demonstrate the products of their design work to their peers and reflect on what the project taught them about the nature of sound and the process of design. Assessment Type: This can be public, group, or individual, embedded in teaching.

Assessment Purpose: This activity assesses student progress toward understanding the purpose and processes of design. The information will be used to plan the next design activity. The activity also permits the teacher to gather data about understanding of sound. Context: Third-grade students have not completed a design project. Their task is to present the product of their work to their peers and talk about what they learned about sound and design as a result of doing the project.

This is a challenging task for third-grade students, and the teacher will have to provide considerable guidance to the groups of students as they plan their presentations. As described in the science standards, the teacher provided the following directions that served as a framework that students could use to plan their presentations.

Describe to the class the purpose function that the other parts of the instrument have. Show the class how you can change the pitch how high or how low the sound is of the sound.

In order to evaluate the student performance, the teacher used the following guidelines:. Student understanding of sound will be revealed by understanding that the sound is produced in the instrument by the part of the instrument that vibrates moves rapidly back and forth , that the pitch how high or how low can be changed by changing how rapidly the vibrating part moves, and the loudness can be changed by the force how hard you pluck, tap, or blow the vibrating part with which the vibrating part is set into motion.

An average student perfor-. An exemplary performance by a student would include not only the ability to identify the source of the vibration but also to change pitch and loudness in both directions.

Student understanding of the nature of technology will be revealed by the student's ability to reflect on why people make musical instruments —to improve the quality of life—as well as by their explanations of how they managed to make the instrument despite the constraints faced—that is, the ability to articulate why the conceptualization and design turned out to be different from the instrument actually made. There is no one best assessment system for the classroom.

What works for Ms. K or Ms. R in their classrooms may not work in another. What is important is that assessment is an ongoing activity, one that relies on multiple strategies and sources for collecting information that bears on the quality of student work and that then can be used to help both the students and the teacher think more pointedly about how the quality might be improved.

In the first vignette, Ms. K is helping her students by painting the broad landscape so that they can see how their work fits into a wider context.

She also reminds them of the criteria for quality work. Thus, she is helping them to develop a clear view of what they are to achieve and where they are going. At this stage, the view is usually clearer to the teacher than to the students. One of her responsibilities is to help the students understand and share the goals, which will become progressively clearer to them as the inquiry progresses.

To chart student progress, Ms. K relies on several strategies and sources: observations, conversations, journal assignments, student work, and a final presentation. These opportunities are part of the natural flow of classroom life, indistinguishable for her and for the students from collecting data, discussing findings, planning next steps, drawing conclusions, and communicating findings about the main concepts they are expected to learn.

In helping her students to reach their goal, she bases her actions on multiple pieces of evidence that she gleans from activities embedded in her teaching and curriculum. She uses this information to make decisions about work time, about support she needs to provide, and about resource suggestions.

She frames an assessment task in a way that will engage students to learn as they prepare for the final presentation and concert. Peer-design reviews, conversations, and other assessments were built into the activity of designing and building instruments so that students could draw from these to inform their design and construction of instruments. She provides the students with prompts and elements that should be included in their presentations so that the students will be clear on what is required.

She has clear guidelines about the quality and depth of responses in terms of how students will demonstrate their understandings and skills. The usefulness of assessment does not stop at teachers collecting information in the course of their teaching and providing feedback.

Like Ms. K and Ms. R, they plan and structure specific assessment events, such as individual conferences with students, occasions for the students to write about a topic, design reviews, observations of students at work, presentations of work, and initiating whole-class discussion of what they have learned so far. These are just some of the many assessment activities and methods available to teachers and students.

In these same scenarios, teachers could also have integrated the use of additional written assessments—including selected response, short answer, essay, lab reports, homework problems, among others —into their teaching in ways that would generate rich assessment opportunities.

Throughout this text, we have attempted to avoid technical terms whenever possible. When we do use them, we try to offer a definition or use it in a context where its meaning makes sense. Box provides operational definitions of several terms you will find in the assessment literature. Assessments that are different in form than traditional paper-and-pencil assessments.

Assessments that allow students to demonstrate their understandings and skills to a teacher or an outsider as they perform a certain activity. They are evaluated by a teacher or an outsider on the quality of their ability to perform specific tasks and the products they create in the process.

The student is involved in selecting pieces of work and includes self-reflections of what understandings the piece of work demonstrates. Thus, criteria for selection and evaluation need to be made clear prior to selection.

Assessments that require students to perform complex tasks representative of activities actually done in out-of-school settings. Now, consider the assessment in the two vignettes in light of the following three guiding questions: Where are you trying to go? Where are you now?

How can you get there? The goals articulated in the Standards arise from their emphasis on the active nature of science and their stress on the range of activities that encompass what it means to do science and to understand both specific concepts and the subject area as a whole. Thus, the Standards advocate going beyond the coverage of basic facts to include skills and thought processes, such as the ability to ask questions, to construct and test explanations of phenomena, to communicate ideas, to work with data and use evidence to support arguments, to apply knowledge to new situations and new questions, to problem solve and make decisions, and to understand history and nature of scientific knowledge NRC, To best assist students in their science learning, assessment should attend to these many facets of learning, including content understanding, application, processes, and reasoning.

The quality of any assessment depends first and foremost on the clarity and appropriateness of our definitions of the achievement target to be assessed We cannot assess academic achievement effectively if we do not know and understand what that valued target is.

As Stiggins states, it is important that teachers have clear performance criteria in mind before they assess student work and responses. R's guidelines included attention to both: she expected her students to demonstrate an understanding of concepts of sound, such as causes of pitch, as well as the nature of technology.

Before the students engaged in the assessment, Ms. R had outlined how she would evaluate the student responses in each area. Clarity about the overall goals is only a first step. Given that goals are clear, the teacher has to help the students achieve greater clarity. This usually entails identification of somewhat discrete stages that will help the students to understand what is required to move toward the goal.

These intermediate steps often emerge as the study progresses, often in lesson design and planning but also on the spot in the classroom as information about the students' levels of understanding become clearer, new special interests become apparent, or unexpected learning difficulties arise.

One of the goals of the Standards is for all students to become independent lifelong learners. The standards emphasize the integral role that regular self-assessment plays in achieving this goal. The document states:.

Students need the opportunity to evaluate and reflect on their own scientific understanding and ability. Before students can do this, they need to understand the goals for learning science. The ability to self-assess understanding is an essential tool for self-directed learning.

Yet, conveying to students the standards and criteria for good work is one of the most difficult aspects of involving them in their own assessment. Again, teachers can use various ways to help students develop and cultivate these insights. Following the example of Ms. K's class in the first vignette, students and teachers can become engaged in a substantive, assessment conversation about what is a good presentation, such as a good lab investigation or a good reading summary while engaging students in the development process of assessment rubrics.

It is important to take a step back and really think about what it is that the assessment is attempting to measure. Clarity of purpose is crucial. More commonly the assessment is a proxy for the complete domain encompassed by the subject. In this case we have to select questions that test various areas of the domain. The larger the domain, the more difficult it will be to cover everything. This refers to the extent to which the results of a particular test, or measurement, correspond to those of a previously established measurement for the same concept.

As the name suggests, concurrent validity relies upon tests that took place at the same time. This might mean assessing students around the same time. An example of this would be assessing a group of students with an old GCSE paper, and then assessing them again a couple of days later, using a new GCSE paper. If your new test compares to a well-established test, you have good evidence that your assessment is working.

Ideally your assessment will be as open possible to everyone who takes it, with no particular group put at a disadvantage. Assessment plays an important role in the process of learning and motivation. The types of assessment tasks that we ask our students to do determine how students will approach the learning task and what study behaviours they will use. Given the importance of assessment for student learning, it is important to consider how to best measure the learning that you want your students to achieve.

Assessment should integrate grading, learning, and motivation for your students. Discussing the ways in which you're assessing with your students can also help to ensure that the aims and goals of your assessments are clear. Utilising assessment that makes use of technology, such as the use of online discussion forums or electronic submission of work, can teach students and perhaps your colleagues new skills.

If you design your assessments well they can also help to deter plagiarism by reducing the ways in which students can gather and report information.

At the end of the day, taking some time to think about why, what and how you're going to assess your students is a worthwhile investment of time. It can help ensure you're assessing the skills and knowledge that you intended and it could open up new possibilities for different ways to assess your students, some of which may be more efficient and effective than the current methods you're using.

Cowan, J.