Eva L. Baker and Girlie Delacruz
UCLA / CRESST
Council of Chief State School Officers
National Conference on Student Assessment
Session: A Vital Goal: Blending Assessment with Instruction
National Harbor, MD
June 21, 2013, 8:00am

Assessment Today?
• Content focus
• Summative
• Accountability
• Formative
• Changing Formats
1 CCSSO

Blended Assessment and
Instruction
Assessment
Instruction
2 CCSSO

Blended
• Mixed to an even consistency
• Smoothed on the edges
• Computers-based and classroom teachers
• In this context
 Key elements needed for improvement
1.
One obvious interpretation, formative assessment during instruction
2.
Assessment that promotes success in an uncertain world
3 CCSSO

• Derived from formative evaluation, checking progress during instruction, finding strategies to help learners fix any shortfalls or misconceptions
• Various mystiques about ways to make it work
 Focus key elements rather than total performance
 Strategies to heighten learner attention
 Forms of feedback
 Follow-up to assure positive result
4 CCSSO

Formative Assessment in
Technological Systems
• As conducted in instructional systems, formative assessment involves various forms and formats of tasks, adaptation, and feedback cycles
• The system adapts to learner successes and failures
• Adaptation models yield evidence of high levels of performance and cost-savings to reach key proficiencies
5 CCSSO

Technology adaptations are currently canned, but it is possible, based on learner’s responses and motivation, to create instruction on-the-fly and to truly personalize learning.
6 CCSSO

Teachers’ Use of Formative
Assessment
• Synonymous with “old” views of good instruction
• Requires close analysis of student’s work
• Demands time for interactions with students
• Wealth of knowledge about potential causes of misconceptions or mistakes
• Teachers need depth of expertise to suggest effective intervening options
7 CCSSO

Challenges of the Common Core
Assessments
• Studies have shown that teachers’ self-reports of their own content knowledge predict their student levels of achievement on open-ended and traditional measures
• Content knowledge in Common Core State
Standards may challenge some teachers
• They will need help to provide close, adaptive, and timely feedback
8 CCSSO

Ways to Help Support
Formative Assessment
• Share domain ontologies and maps
• Share performance criteria
• Provide models of ranges of good and less good performance
• Connect reasons to performance differences
• Engage learners as peer or collaborative helpers
• Use technology like learning games for formative assessments
9 CCSSO

Two Views of Learning
For the Present,
• Learning as logical repetition, additive to complexity
• Fluency and automaticity
• Example: Procedural
Learning
For the Future
• Learning as adaptive and integrative
• Deconstructs learned patterns, determine how they apply, change, or combine to create solutions to unpredictable situations
• Example: Problem solving
10 CCSSO

• With rapid explosion and revision of knowledge
• With changing careers and unstable contexts
• With unfiltered access to knowledge
• With multiple careers in a lifetime
• With relentless global competition
Learners must be taught, evaluated, and assessed on their ability to apply and adapt learning to new situations
11 CCSSO

Rapidly changing contexts
New and unstable knowledge
Globalization vs. localization
Demography
Differential birthrates
Multinational sources of career and jobs
Ever-increasing competition
12 CCSSO

What Does this Mean for Blended
Learning and Assessment?
• Opportunity to confront unpredictable situations of varying complexity
• Opportunity to demonstrate ability to solve unexpected problems under various conditions
• Formal and informal assessments must make adaptive learning central
• Impossible to drill for this task
13 CCSSO

Blending Mixes Up Student
Awareness, Agency, and Privacy
• If my performance counts, I want to know about it
• If my data are being mined and combined to draw inferences about instruction, OK
• If personal information is being used in a blended context, watch out for consent and privacy
14 CCSSO

baker@cse.ucla.edu

Citations:
• http://gorawgogreen.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/vitamix-blender21.jpg?w=276&h=300
• http://www.crazy4me.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Pink-Question-Mark.jpg
• http://studentweb.cortland.edu/Jamie.Vacheresse/project%205/cartoon-airplane.jpg
• http://www.emeraldinsight.com/fig/40_10_1108_S2044-9968_2012_000006C011.png
• http://instantseeze.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/iphone-4g-concept.jpg
• http://cache3.asset-cache.net/gc/LA0317-001-four-babies-sitting-in-row-rear-viewgettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=pOqdjKpfV%2BSQ0E6yHLWDgoudDKRhx4gTToLyYaynX0d%
2FeflHw0g8jNSd7t9VxLek8831I3uslpxFQ4vfcN6DRQ%3D%3D
• http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3469/3721809183_847a705f0c.jpg
• http://www.100open.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/magnifying-glass.jpg
16 CCSSO