Designing STAAR Quality
Assessments
PRESENTERS: ACADEMIC FACILITATORS
(DON MOODY, TJ FLORIE)
Learning objectives
Participants will review items and understand the
procedural and cognitive demand of each item and
ensure they are aligned with the rigor of STAAR.
TodaysMeet
http://todaysmeet.com/cic
Core Belief Activity
Table Talk
At your tables discuss, what actions do you observe that run counter to the Core Beliefs of Dallas
ISD.
Assessment
“We assess students not merely
to evaluate them, but to
improve the entire process of
teaching and learning.”
- Douglas B. Reeves, Making Standards Work
Terminology
•Common Assessment = ACP
•Interim Assessment = formerly common
assessments (ie three weeks, six weeks, unit
tests)
•State Assessment = (STAAR, EOC, TAKS, etc)
Six Steps to Creating Quality
Assessments
1.
DATA: Identify and assess high priority TEKS?
2.
CONTENT: Identify what students need to Know and Do
3.
PROCESSES: Identify Processes and Skills and Dual code items to show
application
4.
REVIEW EXAMPLES: Identify generalizations about STAAR items and
their implications for item and test design.
5.
ITEM AND TEST LEVELING: Ensure items are at the appropriate
cognitive and procedural level based on the TEKS?
6.
DEVELOP QUALITY TEST ITEMS: Ensure that items well constructed.
Step 5:
Determining Cognitive and
Procedural Difficulty Levels
ALIGNING ITEM AND TEST DIFFICULTY TO
STAAR
Determining Difficulty Level
How Difficult is this Item?
Discussion
At your table discuss the difference between cognitive and
procedural difficulty.
Determining Difficulty Level
Cognitive Difficulty
This is basically: How hard is question based on Blooms
Taxonomy?
No question on a test should be above the level of the
learning objective (TEKS SE)**
It is OK to have questions that are lower
**Unless you have a stated learning objective
that has been clearly expressed to the
students and taught.
Determining Difficulty Level
Procedural Difficulty
This is basically: How many mental
processing steps does the student have to go
through to answer the question?
The greater the number of processing steps
the higher the difficulty level
Think–Pair-Share
Why is determining difficulty an essential part of
test design?
Your Turn:
Determining Difficulty
Item Difficulty
1. Look at the following items
2. Identify the cognitive difficulty of the
item
3. Identify the procedural difficulty of
the item
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
STAAR Quality Items
Determine if the following Items meet the rigor of STAAR.
If the items are not STAAR Quality, how can they be rewritten to meet the rigor of STAAR.
Dual Coded Items
Process skills will now be:
assessed in context, not in isolation, which will allow for a more
integrated and authentic assessment of these content areas
incorporated into test questions and reported along with content
skills under the content reporting categories
essential for use during instruction
Brain Research and Dual Coding
Application of Knowledge and Building Schema
◦The brain learns new knowledge (content) by
attaching that knowledge to existing schema
◦The brain builds schema by applying
conceptual and content knowledge in a variety
of novel ways
◦You can most effectively test conceptual
knowledge through application questions
Create an item
Using your chart paper create an assessment item. The item can have any combination of
difficulty ( high-high, medium-high, low-medium, etc.)
In Closing: 3-2-1
What are 3 things you will change on your assessments
What are 2 things you are still pondering
What is 1 thing you want to know more about