Assessment Power!
Pamela Cantrell, Ph.D.
Director, Raggio Research Center for STEM Education
College of Education
University of Nevada, Reno
Teacher Efficacy
• Personal Teaching Efficacy
• “If I try really hard, I can get through
to even the most difficult or
unmotivated students.”
• Teaching Outcome Efficacy
• “When it comes right down to it, a
teacher really can’t do much because
most of a student’s motivation and
performance depends on his or her home
environment.”
Teacher efficacy has been
linked to teacher effectiveness
and appears to influence
student achievement
(standardized tests), attitude
and affective growth.
Agenda
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Assessment Activity
Types of Assessment
Assessment Strategies/Methods
Uses of Assessment
Designing Assessments
Constructing and Using Test
Blueprints
Usual Assessment Question
• What did my students learn about the
concept from the lesson?
What we actually measure. . .
• What my students know about the
concept after the lesson.
Powerful Assessment Questions
• What understandings about the
concept do my students bring to the
learning activity?
• What did my students learn about the
concept as a result of the learning
activity?
Three Types of Assessment
Assessment
Power!
PreAssessment
Formative
Summative
Many Assessment Strategies
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Student Interviews
Questioning
Performance Tasks
Journals—drawings, reflections
Portfolios
Concept Maps
Pencil/Paper
Uses for Preassessments
• Check for conceptual understanding
prior to starting a unit of study
• Identify naïve understandings or
misconceptions
• As a tool to adjust teaching/learning
strategies
Uses for Formative Assessment
(Generally embedded in daily instruction)
• Teachers
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“Shape” or inform teaching
On-the-fly adjustments
Check for student understanding
Allows for diagnostic feedback
• Students
• What they currently understand
• What they still need to learn
Uses for Summative Assessment
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“Sums” learning to date
Demonstrate learning
Certify competence
Grading
Promotion
Classification
When paired with pre-assessment, can be a
tool for identifying effective instructional
practice!
Designing Assessments
Identify
desired
results
Determine
acceptable
evidence
Plan learning
experiences
& instruction
It’s All About Alignment
Identify
desired
results
Assessment
Goals/Objectives/Standards
Determine
acceptable
evidence
Plan learning
experiences
& instruction
1. Identify Desired Results…
Worth Being
Familiar With
Important to
Know & Do
Enduring
Understanding
2. Determine Acceptable
Evidence
• How will we know if
students have achieved
desired results?
• What will we accept as
evidence of proficiency and
understanding?
3. Plan Learning Experiences
& Instruction
• What enabling knowledge (facts,
concepts, and principles) and skills will
students need to perform effectively and
achieve desired results?
• What activities will equip students with
the needed knowledge and skills?
• What will need to be taught and
coached, and how should it best be
taught, in light of performance goals?
• What materials and resources are
best suited to accomplish these
goals?
• Is the overall design coherent and
effective?
Discussion:
Test Result Distribution Curves
Test Blueprints
• Content Domain
• Familiar—20%
• Important—30%
• Enduring Understanding—50%
• Cognitive Domain
• Factual Knowledge—30%
• Conceptual Understanding—35%
• Analysis/Synthesis—35%
Item Develoopment
• Variety of styles
• Multiple choice
• Short response
• T/F
• Across spectrum of difficulty
• Some differentiating questions—5%-10%
Threats to Internal Validity
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Not deeply challenging
Cuing
Just-in-time teaching
Implausible answer choices
Paired distractors
Difference in writing style
Looking at the Results
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Sum content domains
Sum the cognitive domains
Calculate item degree of difficulty
Disaggregate student data
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Gender
Ethnicity
Special Education
SES
Closing the Loop
Reflection
Evaluation
Development
Delivery
Assessment