Extended Written Response Assessment

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Extended Written Response Assessment

• By Doug, Amanda, Kristen, Anders, and Lynn

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Extended Written Assessment

• Discuss Spain
• Analyze King Lear
• Explain the cause of the Civil War
• Requirements
• Written answer, several sentences, and respond to
  a question or task

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When to Use

• Type of learning needs to be assessed
• Knowledge and Reasoning are ideal
• Works well with assessing pieces of knowledge
  that interrelate
• Ex In social studies, you may want to explain
  the differences between two different countries
• Assessing reasoning
• Ex in math, we might ask students to either
  explain how they arrived at an answer or show
  their work

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Other Conditions

• May not work well for primary students, English
  language learners, and students with special
  needs
• Need to be proficient in writing English
• Time consuming to score
• Requires consistency in scoring
• Good assessment in for learning situations
• Learning is still under way

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Developing Extended Written Response

1. Plan the assessment
2. Develop the assessment
3. Critique the assessment
4. Administer the assessment
5. Revise the assessment

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Step 1 Plan the Assessment

• Why Assess?
• To meet specific user information needs
• First decide Assessment for or of learning
• For Learning Planning information for teacher,
  student, or others
• Of Learning Report card grade
• What do we assess?
• Outline the content to be mastered
• Including relationships among elements that we
  can expect students to know and understand
• List of content knowledge, understanding, and
  reasoning

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Step 1 Continued

• How do we assess?
• Extended written response exercises and scoring
  devices
• How Important?
• Relative importance of learning targets

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Step 2 Develop the Assessment

• Easier and quicker to develop for a class, but
  does not require less
• Questions must be posed specifically and clearly
• Does not always have to be related to master of
  content
• Can provide them with a passage, chart, or map
  and have them write on that material
• Demonstrates their understanding of the
  relationship between the question and the material

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Step 2 Continued

• Good written response exercise does 3 things
• Sets up a clear and specific context
• Specifies the kind of reasoning to be brought to
  bear
• Points the way to an appropriate response without
  giving away the answer

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Step 2 Continued

• Extended responses can be evaluated on 3
  different qualities
• Accurate knowledge and understanding (focused on
  content)
• Sound reasoning (focused on content)
• Effective written communication (responseproduct
  itself)
• Must be clear to your students on how you are
  evaluating
• Rubrics and pre-determined point systems are
  useful

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Step 3 Critique the Assessment

• Outline a high quality response yourself to check
  the quality of your exercise
• Sources of bias can arise
• Ex if students are not quite where they should
  be as a writer

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Step 3 Continued

• Rubric for Generalization
• Strong true with proof of evidence and is
  applied logically to a wide range of instances
• Almost There true with proof of evidence, but
  application does not have enough evidence to
  support the wide range of instances
• Beginning true with proof of evidence, there is
  no work attempted beyond that evidence or
  statement is not true for the evidence given

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Step 3 ContinuedQuestions to Assist in
Constructing Effective and High-Quality Exercises

• Quality of Exercises
• Is extended written response the best assessment
  method for this topic?
• Do exercises call for brief, focused response?
• Is the target knowledge clear?
• Are the directions clear enough in order for
  every student to know what to do?
• Is there anything in the question that may put
  any students at a disadvantage regardless of
  their knowledge or reasoning level?
• Are there enough exercises to allow an accurate
  estimate of students learning?

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Step 3 ContinuedQuestions to Assist in
Constructing Effective and High-Quality Exercises

• Quality of Scoring Guide(s)
• Would experts agree with the definition of
  quality response?
• Do the criteria match the exercise?
• Is there a generic rubric that captures the real
  meaning of high quality thinking?
• Scoring Considerations
• Is there enough time to read and evaluate each
  response?
• Will the number of students affect the quality in
  which the responses are assessed?

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Step 4 and 5 Administering and Revising the
Assessment

• Analyze the EWRA for quality
• You will see flaws in your assessment clearly if
  there are any
• If your instruction has fallen short on any
  standards, you will be able to fix this with both
  your current students and for future instruction
• Remember to help the students answer the three
  questions that youll hear more about later