Unlocking the Power of the Teacher-Made Test

Classroom judgment ranks among a t separatelyers closely essential educational tools.Well-constructed instructor-made running playifys tail mop up provide teachers with the heart and soul to conglomerate evidence about what their pupils know and stomach do dish instructors identify students strengths and weaknesses keep tabs on student learning and move on help teachers aim and conduct future pedagogy motivate and shape learning and instruction guide students toward improving their avouch transactions gauge whether students atomic number 18 mastering district, recount, and national education standards nail down if students argon prep bed for the high-stakes state or district tests By unlocking the power of effective gradroom judicial decision, teachers prat accomplish every(prenominal) of the above and more than.In the succession of account aptitude and highstakes finale making, teacher-made tests fucking no longer be viewed as simply a means to ga ther grades for the end of the marking period report cards. process, providing the evidence teachers fill to determine whether or non their students hold achieved the educational goals set out for them. Capturing the Evidence Classroom judgments wad be thought of as evidence capturing devices or tools. The evidence the teacher seeks to gather is harbor to show or prove the students fellowship and ability. Just like a good detective, the classroom teacher moldiness overturn several things in reading the tools apply to gather the evidence What do I think my students should know?What are my expectations for their knowledge primary? This could be based on lesson goals and objectives, curriculum or course surfeit goals, district or state standards, etc. How would I describe my students after they have it away these teaching episodes how would I capture this description? Of wholly the things Ive taught, what are the most important concepts and what should be assessed? What is the best tool for capturing this evidence? How bequeath I use this evidence in the future? Is it simply to keep score or pull up stakes it suffer me to reflect on my teaching and my future think? How will I report this evidence and to whom? moldable vs. summational judgingIn general, all tests can fall under one of two major subheadings formative perspicacitys or summative assessments. Formative assessments are those tools teachers use to monitor student performance on an ongoing basis. These can range from something as simple as the daily judgments teachers make about a students oral response to questions that arise in classroom discussions to more formal paper and pencil tests. Summative assessments, on the new(prenominal) hand, gather evidence about cumulative student learning at the end of an activity, unit, marking period or school year. These typefaces of assessments would include, among others, the final exam or the chapter test.Whether they use format ive or summative methods, effective teachers constantly monitor and revise instructional plans based on their students educational progress and needs. sagacity, whether formal or informal, plays a vital part in this ongoing page 1 Elements of an rough-and-ready Teacher-Made political campaign In reflecting on these questions, teachers vex to realize the power of classroom assessment, and that this tool can be as important in the teaching and learning process as class discussions, small concourse activities, or any other teaching strategy. To unleash this power, and to en for certain that classroom instructional time employ to the assessment is utilise wisely, teachers must carefully plan and design the test.A poorly chosen or intentional assessment will fail to provide the evidence of student learning, or worse, will provide delusory information. It is imperative that the teacher employs a systematic process for developing and using the assessment tool. That process should begin with the instructor enquire a few basic but essential questions What am I act to find out about my students learning? (That is, what student/standards/goals/ takingss am I measuring? ) pound On. permits Talk. www. ets. org/letstalk What kind of evidence do I need to show that my students have achieved the goals that Im trying to measure? What kind of assessment will found me that evidence?To respond to these questions, the teacher must consider these elements of the test design process appropriateness relevancy expectations for learning multiple evidence think fairness assessing the assessment Is it Relevant? An assessment job should make sense in terms of the assessment situation as well as the type of knowledge or adroitness thats be assessed. It should also provide relevant information based on what students should have learned in class. For example, it would be inappropriate to ask ninth-grade, French-class students to carry on a conversation in French about the income revenue enhancement system, if it has nonhing to do with what they had learned in French class, and since it probably has no relevance in their lives. that asking them to carry on a discussion in French about a class trip would be very appropriate.Ideally, an assessment should also reflect real-world applications of knowledge and understanding. Although developing such assessments is not always practical, assessments based on situations relevant to students own world experiences can motivate them to put aside their best performances. If they dont understand why they may need to know something, they wont be as likely to do so. Is it Appropriate? If you were to visit your doctor and he or she used a thermometer to determine your blood pressure you strength have cause for concern. Like the classroom test, the checkup thermometer is an evidence-gathering device (to determine ones body temperature).Both the physician and the classroom teacher must select the best d evice based upon the type of evidence it was meant to provide, and not one that provides evidence of something else. What would happen if a teacher decides to use word problems, rather than number problems, to determine whether third-graders know their multiplication facts? One outcome that we might imagine is that the teacher could not be certain if the test was measuring math ability or reading skill. Having to read and understand the questions could get in the way of a student existence able to demonstrate that he or she can, for instance, multiply 8 x 6 and come up with 48. Of course, if the teacher wants to know whether students can apply their multiplication skills to realistic situations, the word problem task would be appropriate and fair.At the same time, the assessment must measure the knowledge, skills, and/or abilities the teacher feels are important and do this in an appropriate way. If the goal is to test for retention of facts, then a cut-and-dried factual test (e. g . , multiple-choice or fillin-the-blank) may be the best assessment choice. On the other hand, measuring students abstract understanding, ability to analyze data, ability to perform tasks, or their collaborative skills would probably require more mazy forms of assessment. What are the Expectations for Learning?Before administering an assessment designed to measure what students have learned in class, teachers need to ask themselves Based on what Ive taught in class, can my students be pass judgment to answer this? If in good lay out completing the assessment requires knowledge or skills that have not been emphasized in class, or that the students are unlikely to have mastered, the assessment will not provide an accurate or fair military rating of whether the students have learned the material. Of course, if the goal is to find out what students already know or understand in the beginninghand a unit of instruction, then a well-thought-out assessment can provide useful informatio n for planning future lessons. Of course, informing future lesson planning should be one of the key uses of any assessment. One Test or Multiple Sources of Evidence? While a single clue at a evil scene might allow a detective to make some assumptions, the judge and jury will probably need a lot more evidence before making a decision about guilt or innocence.As a result, experienced and competent investigators will employ many tools to gather multiple types of evidence from sources such as fingerprints, DNA samples, other physical clues, as well as actual interviews of witnesses and suspects. Similarly, teachers page 2 Log On. Lets Talk. www. ets. org/letstalk should rely on all sorts of options in stock(predicate) to help them gather evidence of their students learning. These range from the informal, day-to-day ways teachers size up their students progress, such as observation and questioning strategies, to traditional paper-and-pencil tests (multiple-choice and shortanswer ones, for example), to more elaborate forms of assessment, such as essays or problem figure out activities.Just as a detective must gather many sources of evidence to build a win over case, so must a teacher use many sources of evidence to accurately interpret what each student really knows and can do. Limiting themselves to using only one or two assessment methods, no matter how true or valuable, limits teachers ability to fully understand the range of their students knowledge and skills. Conversely, providing students with unlike kinds of opportunities to show what they know gives teachers a broader, better understanding of each students talents and abilities. The questions should challenge students to do more than memorize and recall facts. Focus on assessing the most important and meaningful information, rather than small, irrelevant facts.For example, rather than asking, How many vitamins are essential for humans? A. 7 B. 13 C. 15 D. 23, consider asking Name at least seven vitami ns that are essential for humans and explain why they are essential. Never use questions or inconsequential details just to trick students. Create a test blueprint that will clearly describe the important content areas to be tested, the number and type of items that will get at each content area, the scoring value for the items, the length of time for the test administration, and other critical test components. Is it Fair? To be valid, classroom assessments need to be fair.In assessment terms, that means all students must be given an equal chance to show what they know and can do. An assessment is not fair if it measures things unrelated to its objectives is biased Tests should be designed so that they are focused on the instruction that preceded the assessment, and that ensure that testing, teaching and curriculum are all tightly aligned. Bias is said to exist if the assessment includes content that offends or unfairly penalizes test takers because of personal characteristics s uch as gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, religion, or sexual orientation. mind bias affects validity because it may negatively influence students attitudes toward, and performance on, the assessment.For example, an assessment that includes language or content that offends a specific group of students may hurt the performance of those students by causing them to focus more on the offensive language than on performing at their best. Test takers may also be disadvantaged if the assessment includes content that, although not offensive, assumes prior knowledge likely to be unfamiliar to one particular group of test takers but familiar to another. An obvious example is the need to know something that can only be gained by visiting an art museum, if some groups of students have no personal experience of ever visiting a museum with family or friends. Planning the Assessments Teachers should use the following guidelines when planning any assessment Have the conclusion of the test c learly in mind. Determine what type of assessment will be most appropriate for the situation, based on the nature of what you are teaching, the purpose of the instruction, and what you want to find out. If the purpose of the assessment is to determine how well students have mastered a particular unit of study, make sure the test parallels the work covered in class. And, to be able to discriminate among levels of learning, avoid making the assessment overly difficult or easy. If the assessment is a selected-response or fill-in-the-blank test that will be used to diagnose basic skills, it should contain at least 10 questions preferably more for each skill area.The questions pertaining to each skill area should be considered a subtest, and these subtests should yield separate scores on the several(a) elements needed for mastery of the skill. If the major purpose of the test is to rank a selected group of students in order of their achievement, the questions should cover critical points of learning. Questions on critical points often require understanding implications, applying information, and reorganizing data. page 3 Log On. Lets Talk. www. ets. org/letstalk Tests should be designed to afford students multiple opportunities to tell what they know about a particular subject, not to present them with difficult, if not impossible, tasks.One way to let students shine is to include a subsidy question at the end of the test that asks something like, Take this opportunity to tell me something about this topic that was not included on the test. Other things to consider when poor results are obtained are external, test administration issues e. g. , uncomfortable room temperature, administration right after a long weekend, external noise distractions, unsettling school or community news. One of the most effective ways to improve a classroom assessment is to revue it before administering it. If possible, wait at least one day after the assessment was written bef ore performing the review. Then ask a colleague to review the assessment.As part of this review process, have mortal who did not write the task (a colleague or even a family member) solve the task. Assess the Assessment In assessment, wording is critical. Unclear directions can confuse test takers and negatively affect their responses, which can lead to inaccurate, and therefore useless, information about what the students actually know and can do. Wording in multiple-choice type items is especially important. Being precise in the question and in the options or choices prevents misunderstanding and provides more reliable evidence of what students know. After an assessment has been administered, teachers can ask students how they interpreted the questions, particularly if the questions elicited unexpected results.When assessments give unexpected results for example, the entire class bombs an assessment, or the students responses are not consistent with the type of work the teacher was aspect for its important to take a good hard look at two the assessment and the way it was administered to determine whether it was flawed in some way. Did students who are more able, based on other evidence, do well on the assessment? If not, something might be wrong with it. You might consider analyzing the questions or tasks to make sure each is accurate, valid, fair, and reliable. On the other hand, if the assessment presents a type of task that your students might not be familiar with (e. g. a complex, nonroutine type of problem), students who performed poorly may simply have had difficulty with that particular type of assessment. Did students answer the assessment appropriately but not give the answers you were looking for? Then check to see if the task was well-defined and clearly written. Students cant be expected to give adequate responses if they arent sure what kind of response is expected of them. If the entire class failed the test, it might indicate that the m aterial wasnt taught adequately, or the assessment was so poorly written that the students were unable to apply their knowledge appropriately. During the review, check to see that directions are clear content is accurate questions or tasks are substitute of the topics or skills emphasized during instruction knowledge or skills that were not covered in class are not being unintentionally evaluated the type of assessment used is compatible with the method of instruction used in the classroom and the standard being measured the assessment will contribute to the instructors understanding of what the students know and can do the assessment can be completed in the dish out time the assessment is fair all instances of offensive language, elitism, and bias have been eliminated When teachers begin to analyze assessment results, they should look for two things 1. Does the question or task provide accurate information?Did all the students do poorly on the same question or set of questio ns? Maybe certain questions are enigmatic or misleading, or perhaps the concept is simply not yet well understood by the students and should be retaught. Having students explain why they answered a question in a certain way can be very enlightening to the teacher about whether the problem is in the question (or task), or in students understanding of the concept being assessed. Log On. Lets Talk. www. ets. org/letstalk page 4 2. Each students strengths and weaknesses are they based on his or her patterns or performance? This information can help teachers tailor the next round of instruction to either remedy problems or build on strength.For example, if a particular group of students has difficulty with one set of items that measures a similar set of skills, these students might need extra instruction or a different kind of instruction. Or, if everybody in the class had difficulty with a particular issue that the teacher thought was emphasized in class, then the teacher needs to dete rmine if there was a problem with the instruction and/or material. By taking the time to create fair, focused, and well-thought-out assessments, teachers can have confidence in the evidence gathered and make meaningful judgments about student performance and future instructional plans and decisions. This article was based on the ETS Focus publication Letting Students Shine Assessment to Promote Student Learning. Written by Amada McBride, 1999.