Chapter 6. Assessment Planning
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
Do you hear what I hear . . . .
“I haven't got time to plan.”
If You Haven't Got the Time to
Do It Right, When Will You Find
the Time to Do It Over? (Jeffrey J. Mayer)
“I've never planned before
so why start now? I work best
at the spur of the moment.”
“I know what I need to do, so I don’t
need to plan.”
“I’ve never seen other teachers
in my school develop plans
with this detail so why should I?”
“All the plans I did at YSU got put in a drawer and will never get
used again. Planning is just busy work they demand you to do when
you are in teacher training.”
Planning Assessment Topics
 Goals vs. Objectives
 Taxonomies
Cognitive Domain
 Affective Domain
 Psychomotor Domain
 Sources of objectives
 Checklists for preparing your own
 Objectives
 Assessment Connections to Instruction
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Pretesting, Formative, Summative
Overall assessment plan
Specific assessment plan
Goals vs. Objectives
 Goals –
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General areas (e.g. reading; math; economics)
Goals are set by society (boards, legislatures)
 Objectives –
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More specific, fit within the general areas (e.g. to use
phonics to sound out words; to use geometry to
determine tree height; to understand conditions which
are common in financial recessions)
Objectives are set by educators
Taxonomies
 Systems of mental processes which cut across the specific
content . . . We generally think of, and create goals and
objectives in, three domains:
 Cognitive Domain – knowledge, comprehension, application,
analysis, synthesis, etc. Original focus was college bound
high school students. Thinking regarding the cognitive
domain has been very influential in education.
 Affective Domain – feelings, interests, attitudes, values, etc.
This reminds us of the important “other side” in education but
the domain has not been that influential with educators
 Psychomotor Domain – reflex and expressive movement,
physical skills and abilities, etc. Children served as the
reference point. Has to do with actual performance, not test
item performance. Influential with AAHPERD members.
Benjamin Bloom (1913-1999)
chart maker of the cognitive domain . . .
Bloom's contributions to education began during his
years in the Office of the Board of Examiners at the
University of Chicago (1940-1959). There he headed a
group of cognitive psychologists who published the
Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1:
Cognitive Domain (Bloom, B., Englehart, M. Furst, E.,
Hill, W., & Krathwohl, D. (1956).
In 1959 Bloom spent a year at the Center for Advanced
Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. This
year marked a shift in his research. He spent the next
40 years researching problems in learning, rather than
problems in testing, measurement, and evaluation.
Funny. His latter work never reached the “stature” that
educators were to give the taxonomic work . . . work in
which he himself had lost interest.
Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy
the classic cognitive domain taxonomy . . .
 The Bloom group’s six level classification for intellectual
behaviors important in learning puts forward the idea that not all
learning objectives and outcomes have equal merit. In the absence
of a classification-system (a taxonomy), teachers may choose, for
example, to emphasize memorization of facts rather than
emphasizing other (and likely more important) learned capabilities.
 State level curriculum design did not reflect the intent of such a
taxonomy until the late 1990s.
 In actual practice, the 6 levels are often reduced to 3 levels.
 During the 1990's a new group of cognitive psychologists, lead
by Lorin Anderson (a student of Bloom's), updated the taxonomy
reflecting relevance to 21st century work (see next slide).
 By the way, the Bloom group also worked on the Affective
Domain Taxonomy.
Old Bloom’s vs. New Bloom’s
Note the move from nouns to verbs and the exchange the top two levels
Affective Domain (Krathwohl, 1964)
A taxonomy of 5 levels – students gradually evolve into higher levels.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Receiving - The lowest level; the student passively pays
attention. Without this level no learning can occur.
Responding - The student actively participates in the learning
process, not only attends to a stimulus, the student also reacts
in some way.
Valuing - The student attaches a value to (or has a preference
for) an object, phenomenon, or piece of information.
Organizing - The student can conceptualize a value and value
differences by comparing, relating and elaborating on what has
been learned.
Characterizing or Value Complex - The student has held a
particular value or belief that now exerts influence on his/her
behavior so that it becomes a characteristic and is part of
her/his lifestyle.
Affective Domain Exercise: The Runaway Trolley
Some thinkers cringe at the idea of a stand-alone affective domain. They would
argue that feelings are really filtered thoughts and thus cognitive in nature.
A runaway trolley car is hurtling down a track. In its path are five people
who will definitely be killed unless Sam, a bystander, flips a switch which
will divert it on to another track, where it will kill one person.
Should Sam flip the switch?
A runaway trolley car is hurtling down a track where it will kill five people.
You are standing on a bridge above the track and, aware of the imminent
disaster, you must instantly decide if you will jump on the track to block the
trolley car. Although you will die, the five people will be saved.
Just before your leap, you realize that you are too light to stop the trolley.
Next to you, a fat man is standing on the very edge of the bridge. He
would certainly block the trolley, although he would also die from the
impact. A small nudge and he would fall right onto the track below. No
one would ever know.
Should you push him?
Psychomotor Domain
Anita J. Harrow created this 1972 taxonomy.
This taxonomy is organized according to the
degree of coordination from involuntary
responses to refined learned capabilities:
 Reflex Movements - Automatic reactions.
 Basic Fundamental Movement - Simple movements that can build to
more complex sets of movements.
 Perceptual Abilities - Environmental cues that allow one to adjust
movements.
 Physical Abilities - Things requiring endurance, strength, vigor, and
agility.
 Skilled Movements - Activities where a level of efficiency is achieved.
 Non-discursive Communication – Expressive movement, body
language.
Before leaving Taxonomies . . .
Taxonomies are best viewed as helpful frameworks or
lamp posts creating reference points in the dark
complexity of cognition. The divisions created by the
lamp posts are somewhat arbitrary. There are many
different taxonomies (especially in the cognitive
domain), just like there are many different road maps.
While it is likely that the human mind does not operate
in discrete categories, the categories help us find idea
handles we can use to discuss the range of operations
(simple to complex) going on when thinking. They help
us think about thinking about thinking about thinking . . .
Metacognition.
Future Sources of Objectives
. . . your professional life after TaskStream.
 TIMESS (International)
 NAEP (National – General)
 Professional organizations (National – Specific)
 States (By Subject and Grade Level)
 Textbooks
 School districts
 Building targets
Toward Expert Planning for Your Own Classroom;
Checklist for Preparing . . .
Objectives
 Articulate your objectives with external standards.
 Be sure you are writing student objectives (i.e., what they should
know or be able to do) NOT instructional processes (i.e., what
activities you or the students are doing).
 Strike the right balance between generality and specificity in
describing the task.
 Use specific, action-oriented verbs to describe objective.
 Don’t omit an important objective because it seems too difficult
to assess.
 Be realistic in number of objectives and desired levels of
proficiency.
 Share your objectives with your students, parents, and
colleagues.
 Periodically review your objectives; remove, modify, add.
Toward Expert Planning for Your Own Classroom;
Making Assessment Planning
. . . part of your instructional planning
 One would think that the purpose of assessment is to improve learning.
This is true only if/when we design it so. Toward this end, it is often
useful to think of three “places” or “purposes” in our assessment plan.
 Pre-assessment. Do this at the beginning. What do my students
know before we start? Are there things I need to review or skills I
should teach first? Are there things they know already? Should I
be ready to develop alternative approaches for some students?
 Formative assessment. Do this along the way. How are my
students doing? How well I am doing? Should I re-teach? Should
I develop alternative approaches for some students? These
assessments should be informal, non-threatening, and provide
immediate feedback.
 Summative assessment. Do this at the end. How did they do?
What grades should I give? Should I be ready to develop
alternative approaches for some students for the next unit/topic?
Toward Expert Planning for Your Own Classroom;
Checklist for Preparing the year’s . . .
Overall Summative Assessment Plan
 Indicate the purposes of the assessments you plan to use (e.g.,
formative, motivational, self-progress, grades for grade book).
 Decide on the frequency of assessments (e.g., more frequent
assessment promotes learning and helps keep students on task;
too much assessment can take away from instructional time).
 Consider the schedule for assessments. (e.g., don’t plan to do
them with other tests, around holidays, before big school events).
 Plan for the right mix of types of assessments (e.g., selected
response; constructed response; performance).
 Revise your assessments periodically (e.g., remove, modify,
add).
 Use textbook-based tests but with caution. (e.g., you can save
time by using them with modifications appropriate to your teaching;
they are marketing tools so don’t assume they are valid).
Toward Expert Planning for Your Own Classroom;
Checklist for Preparing a topic’s or unit’s specific . . .
Formative & Summative Assessment
 Consider a pre-test or use pre-assessment information to guide
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instruction – how much do they know; where are the rough spots?
Develop some formative evaluation techniques to use along the way –
how are they doing; what should I revisit a different way?
Build from a test blueprint or table of specifications - 2-way table
preferred over the 1-way blueprint?
Decide on length – how many items for the time allowed; is the rule of
thumb “one-item-per-minute” for objective items enough?
Allow time for preparing – is it a new test you are creating for the first
time; is it a recycled test?
Plan for scoring – how much time will you need; should students score?
Feedback to students – feedback should be sooner rather than later;
will students see their grade only; entire test; go over all items?
Practical Advice “pour vous” on building your own domains of
Classroom Assessment Planning
1.
AFFECTIVE DOMAIN: Value the notion of the importance of
an overall plan for assessment, to include the process of
credibly interpreting performance and assigning grades.
2.
COGNITIVE DOMAIN: Clearly identify your classroom
instructional objectives and index them to an “authority.”
3.
PSYCHOMOTOR DOMAIN: Develop skill in preparing a test
blueprint or table of specifications to strive for a high degree of
content validity on all assessments.
Terms Concepts to Review and
Study on Your Own (1)
 affective domain
 Bloom’s taxonomy
 blueprint
 cognitive domain
 content standards
 goals
Terms Concepts to Review and
Study on Your Own (2)
 metacognition
 objectives
 psychomotor domain
 table of specifications
 taxonomy