Assessments and Grades

 What is the purpose of my assessment? 

Understanding students (within my subject matter, and more generally)

Getting feedback from students about their learning and classroom experiences

Formative versus summative

Formal versus informal

Creating Assessments

Reliability refers to whether an assessment instrument gives the same results each time it is used in the same setting with the same type of subjects. Reliability essentially means consistent or dependable results. Reliability is a part of the assessment of validity. (Vocabulary example; wording example; two questions in one example.)

Validity refers to the extent that a test measures what it is supposed to measure. (examples: giving feedback on “neatness” when the test was for understanding of concepts; designing a rubric that mostly favors “working well”, when the objectives were to assess understanding of greenhouse gasses; how does the assessment connect to your objectives? Theatre example: objectives performance based and assessment was to memorize names and dates.)

Age-appropriate and time-appropriate: wording, length, cultural references are reasonable for the group of students.

What Do I Do with the Assessment Information?

Feedback for the student

Feedback for me (the teacher)

Adapting and personalizing instruction

How Do I Assign a Grade?

What are my school/district requirements?

Small assessments towards grade, or “mastery” towards grade? (Or something in between?) 

What does “getting and A” in your class mean?

Issues with assessments

• Who is doing the assessing? Me? My peer? My teacher (MKO)?  The internet? A governing board of experts?

• Who is being assessed? The individual? The group? The teacher? Philosophies behind individual vs. collective/distributed cognition. 

• The psychology behind feedback. Issues with identity and ego. Connections to growth mindset. Feedback from students. Tips and tricks to teach yourself and students how to take feedback.

• High-stakes testing  culture. The goods. The bads. How does it fit my goals? Ways to mitigate. Ways to embrace. Ways to reject. Ways to object.

• Creating assessments that match goals. Whose goals? Mine? The school? The student? The future job market? The parents? The community? 

• Authentic assessment. (And shouldn’t they all be?) 

• Generative (beyond diagnoses): Could you use assessment time as learning time? How? (Examples of Geometry for teachers and calculus.) 

• Testing anxiety. Stereotype threat. Ego threat. Outcome and performance anxiety. Expectations. Revising the program.