Assessment in the Curriculum Design Process
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The document provides a comprehensive overview of assessment in education, explaining its purpose, types, and methods for evaluating student learning. It emphasizes the distinction between assessment and grading, outlines effective assessment strategies, and introduces concepts such as formative, summative, and authentic assessments. Additionally, it incorporates exercises for educators to reflect on their assessment practices and connect them to real-life contexts.
Assessment in the Curriculum Design Process
- 1. ASSESSMENT What Is It, and Why Does It Matter? Peter Gow For the One Schoolhouse Licensed Under Creative Commons Attribution—Non-Commercial—Share Alike
- 2. TABLE OF CONTENTS ASSESSMENT 101:What,Why; Assessment & Curriculum; Effective Assessment;Types of Assessment ACTIVITY: How might we assess...? ASSESSMENT 201: Bloom’s Taxonomy & Assessment Design ASSESSMENT 301: Assessment in Context ASSESSMENT TO GRADES: Quick thoughts ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 4. WHAT IS ASSESSMENT ? §Measuring or determining what students have learned, ideally based on what was intended §Term also used to describe a tool—project, test, presentation, performance, …—used for measuring or determining learning ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 5. WHY ASSESS ? §To improve student learning §To improve teaching §To facilitate communication §To audit student performance (i.e., for grading evaluation) ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 6. ASSESSMENT IS NOT GRADING; grading is EVALUATION PSSST! ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 7. CURRICULUM INTHREE QUESTIONS §Where are you going? §How are you gonna get there? §How are you gonna know that you’ve arrived? (Thank you, Professor Walter Crocker at Rhode Island College, who taught me this concept of “backwards curriculum design” in 1976, years before Grant Wiggins, though it fell on my unhearing ears at the time. I thought my curriculum was the textbook or sequence of readings.) ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 8. DESTINATION & ASSESSMENT Where are you going? What specific desired learnings will you want to make sure that students have actually learned? What knowledge, understandings, skills, perspectives, and dispositions will you want to assess? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 9. ENTER PRE- ASSESSMENT §Exercises to discover what students know and don’t know as they enter a new area of learning §RULE OF THUMB: Pre- assessment ought to be “no stakes” assessment §Related to DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT, which can be used as a pre-assessment or as a tool for trouble-shooting along the way ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 10. THE JOURNEY & ASSESSMENT How are you gonna get there? What questions, activities, and exercises should you be designing and assigning along the way to make sure that your students are truly coming along and keeping up with your itinerary on this journey?ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 11. ENTER FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT §Assessments designed to measure intentionally defined elements of a student’s progress en route to larger or more “final” learning goals §Often used to check up on content/factual knowledge, procedural knowledge, basic application skillsASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 12. How are you gonna know that you’ve arrived? What kinds of questions, projects, exercises, presentations, or other work will you be asking of students that will provide the evidence of these desired learnings? ARRIVAL & ASSESSMENT ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 13. ENTER SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT §Assessments designed to measure defined elements of mastery of more holistic or broader learning: larger or more “final” concepts, deeper understandings, or skills §Can also be adapted to include the assessment of social-emotional learning/development in the context of broader performances (organizational, collaborative, creative, cross-cultural…) ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 14. CONCEPT: AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT Authentic assessment attempts to mirror, replicate, or relate directly to “the real world,” ideally to students’ real lives as family members, group members, citizens, humans. Authentic assessment usually involves evaluating or creating, is usually built around complex questions or ill-defined problems. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 15. AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT EXAMPLES § Write a letter to an official or a newspaper about… § Create a product that will lead to a particular social benefit… § Write a “legal brief” defending or supporting a particular cause in which you believe § Gather data on an environmental or social problem in your community, organize and present this data in a compelling way, and propose ways to ameliorate it to an appropriate government agency § Create a space, object, or installation on your campus that expresses an important aspect of … § Make your best scientific argument either for or against… § Design a museum display to showcase the role of mathematics in our daily livesASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 16. BTW TWO OTHER SPECIES OF ASSESSMENT § NORM-REFERENCED: measure and provide comparative information on a student’s mastery of content material, understandings, and skills relative to that of other students (Can you spell SAT?) § CRITERION-REFERENCED: measure learning against defined (and ideally objective) criteria. Can be used to establish competence, and handy in classrooms for “mastery learning” of essential content or basic skills:“Must score 80% to pass; retakes permitted.” (Did you get a learner’s permit?) ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 18. EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT INTENTIONALLY FOCUSES ON WHAT MATTERS: It asks students to present evidence of the important learning you want to have occurred. A RULE OF ASSESSMENT: “ASSESS WHATYOU VALUE AND VALUE WHATYOU ASSESS.” —GRANT WIGGINS ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 19. EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT §HAS NO SECRETS §PROVIDES FEEDBACK §CONNECTS AUTHENTICALLY TO CONTENT §FITS THE LEARNING ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 20. A RULE OF ASSESSMENT: THE NATURE OF THE ASSESSMENT SHOULD FIT THE NATURE OF THE INTENDED LEARNING ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 21. EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT §IS FAIR §IS SAFE §IS CREDIBLE §IS VARIED §FOLLOWS A TRAJECTORY; THINK: Destination, Journey, Arrival §IS TIMELY §IS MANAGEABLEASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 22. WHAT DOES ASSESSMENT LOOK LIKE? Assessment encompasses a broad range of methods and techniques. A few examples: §long-term, hands-on, field-work- intensive, multi-genre, cross- disciplinary collaborative, projects §essays, problem sets §standardized multiple-choice tests §skits, simulations, debates, enactments §paper-and-pencil quizzes ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 23. AN EXERCISE (1) HOW MIGHTYOU • ASSESS STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND A GRAPH? or • ASSESS STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO WRITE PERSUASIVELY? What form of assessment would you use? What would it look like? AND: In ONE of these assessments, explicitly make a connection in the nature or content or framing of the assessment to the students’ real lives as family members, community members, citizens, or living organisms on Planet Earth. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 24. FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION § What might be your learning objective—“Destination”— for each topic? § Which kinds of assessments might reveal students’ deepest (or highest) levels of understanding? § What kinds of FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS might be useful during the “Journey” to ensure that students are prepared for this assessment? § At what point will you know that students are ready for the main, summative assessment—the “Arrival”—for this topic? What markers will help you as a teacher know this? § Which kinds of assessments would be most likely to engage students? § Which kinds of assessments would be easiest for you to evaluate? § Which kinds of assessments most appeal to you as a teacher? § What are some possible drawbacks of the “best” ideas you had during this activity? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 25. AN EXERCISE (2) HOW MIGHTYOU • ASSESS STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF THE 1960S? or • ASSESS STUDENTS’ READINESS TO STUDY FUNCTIONS IN PRECALCULUS? What form of assessment would you use? What would it look like? AND: In ONE of these assessments, explicitly make a connection in the nature or content or framing of the assessment to the students’ real lives as family members, community members, citizens, or living organisms on Planet Earth.ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 26. FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION § What might be your learning objective—“Destination”— for each topic? § Which kinds of assessments might reveal students’ deepest (or highest) levels of understanding? § What kinds of FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS might be useful during the “Journey” to ensure that students are prepared for this assessment? § At what point will you know that students are ready for the main, summative assessment—the “Arrival”—for this topic? What markers will help you as a teacher know this? § Which kinds of assessments would be most likely to engage students? § Which kinds of assessments would be easiest for you to evaluate? § Which kinds of assessments most appeal to you as a teacher? § What are some possible drawbacks of the “best” ideas you had during this activity? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 27. AN EXERCISE (3) HOW MIGHTYOU • ASSESS STUDENTS’ INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY? or • ASSESS STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO MAKE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE FILM AMERICAN BEAUTY AND THE NOVEL THE GREAT GATSBY? What form of assessment would you use? What would it look like? AND: In ONE of these assessments, explicitly make a connection in the nature or content or framing of the assessment to the students’ real lives as family members, community members, citizens, or living organisms on Planet Earth. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 28. FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION § What might be your learning objective—“Destination”— for each topic? § Which kinds of assessments might reveal students’ deepest (or highest) levels of understanding? § What kinds of FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS might be useful during the “Journey” to ensure that students are prepared for this assessment? § At what point will you know that students are ready for the main, summative assessment—the “Arrival”—for this topic? What markers will help you as a teacher know this? § Which kinds of assessments would be most likely to engage students? § Which kinds of assessments would be easiest for you to evaluate? § Which kinds of assessments most appeal to you as a teacher? § What are some possible drawbacks of the “best” ideas you had during this activity? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 29. AN EXERCISE (4) HOW MIGHTYOU • ASSESS WHETHER YOUR STUDENTS UNDERSTAND THE UTILITY OF THE BINOMIAL THEOREM? or • ASSESS STUDENTS’ MASTERY OF A LIST OF VOCABULARY WORDS? What form of assessment would you use? What would it look like? AND: In ONE of these assessments, explicitly make a connection in the nature or content or framing of the assessment to the students’ real lives as family members, community members, citizens, or living organisms on Planet Earth. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 30. FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION § What might be your learning objective—“Destination”— for each topic? § Which kinds of assessments might reveal students’ deepest (or highest) levels of understanding? § What kinds of FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS might be useful during the “Journey” to ensure that students are prepared for this assessment? § At what point will you know that students are ready for the main, summative assessment—the “Arrival”—for this topic? What markers will help you as a teacher know this? § Which kinds of assessments would be most likely to engage students? § Which kinds of assessments would be easiest for you to evaluate? § Which kinds of assessments most appeal to you as a teacher? § What are some possible drawbacks of the “best” ideas you had during this activity? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 31. AN EXERCISE (5) HOW MIGHTYOU • ASSESS STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THE PARTS OF A CELL FUNCTION? or • ASSESS STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF THE FUNCTIONS OF THE THREE BRANCHES OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT? What form of assessment would you use? What would it look like? AND: In ONE of these assessments, explicitly make a connection in the nature or content or framing of the assessment to the students’ real lives as family members, community members, citizens, or living organisms on Planet Earth. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 32. FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION § What might be your learning objective—“Destination”— for each topic? § Which kinds of assessments might reveal students’ deepest (or highest) levels of understanding? § What kinds of FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS might be useful during the “Journey” to ensure that students are prepared for this assessment? § At what point will you know that students are ready for the main, summative assessment—the “Arrival”—for this topic? What markers will help you as a teacher know this? § Which kinds of assessments would be most likely to engage students? § Which kinds of assessments would be easiest for you to evaluate? § Which kinds of assessments most appeal to you as a teacher? § What are some possible drawbacks of the “best” ideas you had during this activity? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 33. AN EXERCISE (6) HOW MIGHTYOU • ASSESS STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO READ AND UNDERSTAND A NOVEL IN SPANISH? or • ASSESS STUDENTS’ KNOWLEDGE OF THE PARTS OF A CELL? What form of assessment would you use? What would it look like? AND: In ONE of these assessments, explicitly make a connection in the nature or content or framing of the assessment to the students’ real lives as family members, community members, citizens, or living organisms on Planet Earth. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 34. FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION § What might be your learning objective—“Destination”— for each topic? § Which kinds of assessments might reveal students’ deepest (or highest) levels of understanding? § What kinds of FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS might be useful during the “Journey” to ensure that students are prepared for this assessment? § At what point will you know that students are ready for the main, summative assessment—the “Arrival”—for this topic? What markers will help you as a teacher know this? § Which kinds of assessments would be most likely to engage students? § Which kinds of assessments would be easiest for you to evaluate? § Which kinds of assessments most appeal to you as a teacher? § What are some possible drawbacks of the “best” ideas you had during this activity? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 35. AN EXERCISE (7) HOW MIGHTYOU • ASSESS STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF THE IMPACT OF GOVERNMENT TAX POLICY ON THE LIVES OF CITIZENS? or • ASSESS WHETHER STUDENTS UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SCIENTIFIC THEORY AND A SCIENTIFIC LAW? What form of assessment would you use? What would it look like? AND: In ONE of these assessments, explicitly make a connection in the nature or content or framing of the assessment to the students’ real lives as family members, community members, citizens, or living organisms on Planet Earth.ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 36. FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION § What might be your learning objective—“Destination”— for each topic? § Which kinds of assessments might reveal students’ deepest (or highest) levels of understanding? § What kinds of FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS might be useful during the “Journey” to ensure that students are prepared for this assessment? § At what point will you know that students are ready for the main, summative assessment—the “Arrival”—for this topic? What markers will help you as a teacher know this? § Which kinds of assessments would be most likely to engage students? § Which kinds of assessments would be easiest for you to evaluate? § Which kinds of assessments most appeal to you as a teacher? § What are some possible drawbacks of the “best” ideas you had during this activity? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 37. AN EXERCISE (8) HOW MIGHTYOU • ASSESS STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF A SCENE FROM MACBETH? or • ASSESS STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING THE EQUATION RELATING SPEED, DURATION OF TIME, AND DISTANCE TRAVELED? What form of assessment would you use? What would it look like? AND: In ONE of these assessments, explicitly make a connection in the nature or content or framing of the assessment to the students’ real lives as family members, community members, citizens, or living organisms on Planet Earth. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 38. FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION § What might be your learning objective—“Destination”— for each topic? § Which kinds of assessments might reveal students’ deepest (or highest) levels of understanding? § What kinds of FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS might be useful during the “Journey” to ensure that students are prepared for this assessment? § At what point will you know that students are ready for the main, summative assessment—the “Arrival”—for this topic? What markers will help you as a teacher know this? § Which kinds of assessments would be most likely to engage students? § Which kinds of assessments would be easiest for you to evaluate? § Which kinds of assessments most appeal to you as a teacher? § What are some possible drawbacks of the “best” ideas you had during this activity? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 39. SO? § What was hard about the exercise? § What was most interesting about the exercise? § Did the exercise change any of your thoughts on assessment? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 41. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives in the Cognitive Domain, updated for the Digital Age
- 42. REMEMBERING WHAT DOES REMEMBERING LOOK LIKE? Retrieving, recalling or recognizing knowledge from memory. Remembering is when memory is used to produce definitions, facts or lists, or recite or retrieve material. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 43. ASSESSING REMEMBERING ALMOST ALWAYS CLOSED-ENDED QUESTIONS • What happened after...? • How many...? • What is...? • Who was it that...? • Can you name ...? • Find the meaning of… • Describe what happened after… • Who spoke to...? • Which is true or false...? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 44. UNDER- STANDING WHAT DOES UNDERSTANDING LOOK LIKE? Explaining ideas or concepts, interpreting, summarizing, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 45. ASSESSING UNDER- STANDING MOSTLY CLOSED-ENDED QUESTIONS/PROMPTS • Paraphrase… • How would you explain…? • Can you write a brief outline...? • If A occurs in a system, predict B… • Who do you think...? • What was the main idea...? • Can you clarify…? • Can you illustrate…? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 46. APPLYING WHAT DOES APPLYING LOOK LIKE? Using information in another familiar situation: implementing; carrying out; using; executing; using a process, algorithm, or procedure properly ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 47. ASSESSING APPLYING MOSTLY OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS/PROMPTS SEEKING TO ELICIT PROCESS APPLICATION OR CAUSALITY • Do you know of another instance where…? • Can you group by characteristics such as…? • Which factors would you change if…? • What questions would you ask of…? • From the information given, can you develop instructions about…? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 48. ANALYZING WHAT DOES ANALYZING LOOK LIKE? Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships: comparing, organizing, deconstructing, interrogating, finding, scaling ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 49. ASSESSING ANALYZING OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS/PROMPTS • Which events could not have happened? • If...had happened, what might the ending have been? • How is...similar to...? • What do you see as other possible outcomes? • Why did...occur? • What are some or the problems of...? • Can you distinguish between...? • What was the turning point? • What was the problem with...? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 50. EVALUATING WHAT DOES EVALUATING LOOK LIKE? Justifying a decision or course of action: checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging, offering constructive feedback ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 51. ASSESSING EVALUATING OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS (STUDENT-GENERATED Qs +++!) • Is there a better solution to...? • Judge the value of... • What do you think about...? • Can you defend your position about...? • Do you think...is a good or bad thing? • How would you have handled...? • What changes to…would you recommend? • How would you feel if...? • How effective are. ..? • What are the consequences? • What influence will....have on our lives? • What are the pros and cons of...? • Why is...of value? • What are the alternatives? • Who will gain & who will lose? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 52. CREATING WHAT DOES CREATING LOOK LIKE? Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things: designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing, making analogues or extensions ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 53. ASSESSING CREATING ASKING STUDENTS TO CREATE THEIR OWN OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS OR PROJECTS TO PURSUE • Can you design a...to...? • Can you see a possible solution to...? • If you had access to all resources, how would you deal with...? • Why don't you devise your own way to...? • What would happen if ...? • How many ways can you...? • Can you create new and unusual uses for...? • Can you develop a proposal which would...? • How might you be inspired to interpret…in a different medium or genre?ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 54. SO? § What was hard about the exercise? § What was most interesting about the exercise? § Did the exercise change any of your thoughts on assessment? ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 56. WHAT WE ASSESS: PRODUCT PRODUCT: The objects, performances, essays, utterances, and other intentionally elicited and defined evidence of learning “produced” by the student that reveal what has been learned ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 57. WHAT WE ASSESS: PROCESS PROCESS: The nature and quality of a student’s actual (recorded or tracked) efforts toward defined learning goals, usually as broken down into multiple elements, that reveal how the student learns ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 58. WHAT WE ASSESS: SEL SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING (a relatively new area for assessment): The quality of a student’s affective engagement with learning— dispositions; interpersonal characteristics, skills, and preferences; response to setbacks and/or feedback; engagement with ideas or with others ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 59. CATEGORIES OF SOCIAL- EMOTIONAL LEARNING from The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 61. A PRINCIPLE OF EVALUATION Student work being evaluated should never be about surprises or hidden standards or expectations. Clarity of expectations matters in eliciting quality work. A RULE OF ASSESSMENT: THE EVALUATED WEIGHT OF AN ASSESSMENT SHOULD MORE OR LESS MATCH THE SCALE OF THE ASSESSMENT IN TIME AND EFFORTASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 62. IMPORTANT THING 1 (OF 2): PERFORMANCE STANDARDS DON’T FORGET TO TELL STUDENTS ABOUT § the CRITERIA by which the quality of their learning will be assessed (and the quality of their work evaluated) § the CATEGORIES of work— product, process, SEL, …—on which the nature of their learning will be assessed (and the quality of their work evaluated) CRITERIA AND CATEGORIES FOR QUALITY LEARNING ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
- 63. PROTIP: RUBRICS § Rubrics aren’t perfect or a universal cure, but they can provide clarity for teachers and students. § No, we don’t want to reduce schoolwork to a formula, but keep a “mental rubric” and share criteria and categories as they matter, assessment by assessment. § But, real rubrics do help quite often. ASSESSMENT/Gow Creative Commons BY-NC-SA