Evaluation of Student Learning

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Evaluation of Student Learning

• Third Summer Leadership Institute
• Amherst, MA
• Center for School Counseling Outcome Research

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Some Preliminary Evaluation Questions

• How do we know that students have learned what we
  intended or hoped they would?
• What types of learning are you looking for on
  Blooms taxonomy?
• What will you accept as evidence of learning?
• What is evidence of mastery?
• Do you want all students to reach mastery? Some
  percentage?

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Purposes for Evaluation of Learning

• Feedback to students
• Feedback to teachers
• Feedback to parents
• Information for selection and certification
• Information for accountability
• Information to increase student effort

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Increasing Student Effort

• Evaluation must matter or be important to
  students (parents care or college admission)
• Evaluation must be tied to actual performance
  (honest, objective measures)
• Consistent standards (fair and equal)
• Clear criteria (how to get a good grade)
• Reliable interpretations of evaluations
• Frequent evaluations (quizzes rather than finals)
• Challenging evaluations (hard, but impossible for
  none compare students to own past performance)

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What tools do we have?

• Selected-response-format (multiple choice,
  true-false) tests and quizzes
• Written responses to academic prompts
  (short-answer format)
• Extended written products (essays, papers, lab
  reports)
• Visual products (PowerPoint, mural)
• Oral performances (oral report, world language
  dialogue, debate)

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What tools do we have?

• Student demonstrations (athletic skills, music
  performance, role plays)
• Long-term authentic assessment projects (exhibit)
• Portfolios
• Reflective journals or learning logs
• Informal observations of students

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What tools do we have?

• Formal observations of students using observable
  indicators
• Student self-assessment
• Peer reviews and peer response groups
• Questions in class-- learning probes

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Assessment Resources Understanding by Design
(UbD)

• Encouraging Self-Evaluation p. 223
• Questioning for Understanding p. 156
• Performance Task Scenarios p. 172
• Possible Products and Performances p. 174
• Generic Rubric for Understanding p. 193

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Assessment Resources

• Rubrics for Generic Information, Generic
  Procedures, Problem Solving, Decision Making pp.
  192-193, 215, 226, Handbook for Classroom
  Instruction
• Model for Decision Making p. 221, Handbook for
  Classroom Instruction

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Assessment of Learning

• Start with what you want students to know and
  to be able to do at the end of the lesson.
• These are the learning or instructional
  objectives, and the assessment needs to be
  directly linked to them.

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Knowledge and Skills

• What we want students to know
• Vocabulary, Terminology, Definitions
• Key factual information
• Critical details
• Sequences
• Concepts

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Knowledge and Skills

• What do we want students to be able to do
• Basic skills math, reading
• Communication skills listening, speaking,
  writing
• Thinking skills compare, infer, analyze,
  interpret
• Research, investigation skills
• Study skills
• Interpersonal and group skills

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Assessment of Learning Caveat

• Assessment and evaluation of learning is a
  snapshot of what is learned (except alphabet and
  math facts) there is no way to fully represent
  or measure all the learning that has occurred.
  SO, of all the things learned, what do we want to
  demonstrate to selves, students, parents was the
  outcome?

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Assessment of Learning Prior to Implementation

• Need to start with identification of what
  students already know. What are their existing
  understandings, skills, interests?
• Can ask, Why do you think this is important
  to know? Why do you think we are studying
  this? What do you already know about this?

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Diagnostic Assessment

• Diagnostic assessment precedes instruction, and
  identifies
• students prior knowledge
• misconceptions
• interests
• learning-style preferences
• Examples pre-tests, student surveys, skills check

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Formative Assessment

• Formative Assessment is ongoing, informal checks
  for understanding during the curriculum
  implementation, and provides
• Information to guide teaching
• Feedback for pacing
• Information about how to improve student
  performance
• Resource p. 234 Understanding by Design

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Summative Assessment

• Summative assessment follows instruction, and
  identifies
• Students level of mastery
• Student proficiency
• Examples post-tests, performance task,
  culminating project, portfolio

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Effective Assessment

• Performance goals and standards are clear
• Diagnostic assessments check for prior knowledge,
  skill level, and misconceptions
• Students demonstrate their understanding through
  real-world applications
• Assessment methods are matched to achievement
  targets

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Effective Assessment

• Assessment is ongoing and timely
• Learners have opportunities for trial and error,
  reflection and revision
• Self-assessment is expected

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Returning to Clarifying Curriculum Content
Priorities

• Worth being familiar with
• Assess using traditional quizzes and tests
• Important to know and do
• Assess using both traditional methods and
  performance tasks and projects
• Big Ideas and Enduring Understandings
• Assess using performance tasks and projects
• Complex, open-ended, authentic assessment

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Simple Pre-test/ Post-test Evaluation
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Authentic Assessment

• Authentic or Performance Assessment Students are
  asked to demonstrate that they can do something
  real with the information and skills they have
  learned.
• Portfolios
• Write letters to the editor or a school newspaper
• Write and illustrate a book for the classroom
• Build scale models
• Perform for an audience
• Perform an experiment

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Scoring Rubrics for Performance Assessments

• Specify in advance the type of performance
  expected
• Need to ensure that the scoring system is clear
  to students
• See rubric examples from UbD

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Research on Authentic Assessment

• Performance assessments are challenging to
  evaluate objectively
• Evaluation outcomes seem to depend on the type of
  performance as much as the skills of the learner
• Student evaluation scores have been more related
  to student aptitude than to what students were
  taught
• Scoring rubrics can enhance achievement

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Assessment Example Returning to Backwards Design

• 1. Identify desired results If we want the
  learners to understand that
• Friendship demands honesty
• True friendship is often revealed during hard
  times
• It is sometimes hard to know who your true
  friends are

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Backwards Design

• 2. Identify acceptable evidence of knowledge
• What must students be able to explain, justify,
  support, or answer about their work for us to
  infer genuine understanding?
• What would enable us to infer students
  understanding of what they have learned?

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Assessments Linked to Desired Results

• Possible assessment of understanding of
  friendship (elementary level)
• Order a friend from a catalog what qualities
  should your friend have?
• Dear Abby Give advice to someone who lied to a
  friend.
• Develop a brochure for younger students to help
  them know who their true friends are.
• Explain who your friends are and why they are
  your friends.

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Assessments Linked to Desired Results

• Possible assessment of understanding of
  friendship (elementary level)
• Describe the qualities of a true friend. Justify
  the qualities you selected.
• Create a comic strip or book to illustrate
  friendship qualities and friendly behaviors.
• Tell or draw a story showing what happens when
  two friends dont see eye-to-eye.
• Respond to quotes about friendship (e.g. A
  friend in need is a friend indeed)

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Small Group Activity

• Using the pedagogical cycle already developed for
  SSS, identify several ways you could assess
  student learning. Revise your learning objectives
  if necessary.
• What authentic assessments could you use?
• What rubric(s) would you use?
• What are 3 short, key pre-test/post-test
  questions you could ask?

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National Center for School Counseling Outcome
Research

• Thank You

www.cscor.org