Assessment
Teaching & Testing the Common Core
“If we get this right, we’ll put our students on the path to a better future.” Gene Wilhoit, CCSSO, was talking about implementing Common Core assessments during closing panel of the Technology Enhanced Assessment conference. “Assessments are one element in the ecology of schools and school improvement,” David Conley said, “The whole system needs to be addressed.”
Prize Means More Writing, Deeper Learning for American Students
With the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open Education Solutions announced the winners of the $100,000 Automated Student Assessment Prize (ASAP) this morning in Washington DC. The top three teams, made up of international data scientists, developed predictive algorithms that were able to score thousands of essays very quickly with remarkable accuracy compared to expert graders.
An Odd Couple of Measuring 21st Century Skills
The morning session at the Technology Enhanced Assessments conference hosted by the K12 Center at ETS and CCSSO featured what Michael Russell, Measured Progress, called a formative assessment odd couple—a messy science virtual world and a math homework helper.
Time for More Simulations in Class & On Tests
John Behrens is an assessment guy that doesn’t like to talk about items. “Items pose questions and have specific answers.” Behrens adds, “Items don’t tell us much about the learner, items are a relic of the pre-automated world.”
Measurement is Friend Not Foe to Creativity
A writer in the Daily Iowan is worried about automated essay scoring killing creativity. He confused two issues. The online scoring engines use the same rubrics to score essays as human graders. The answer is more assessment not less, but much of it will occur in the background behind engaging learning activities.
How Formative Assessment Supports Writing to Learn
One MIT prof thinks he can game one engine and the New York Times and NPR do stories on his anecdotal claims and miss the evidence of many large scientific studies including the study released this month. ASAP was designed to create evidence that supports the use of automated essay scoring to affordably incorporate more writing on their annual tests and avoid tests limited to multiple choice items. ASAP has provided sufficient evidence to support widespread use of automated scoring.
Better Tests, More Writing, Deeper Learning
In a recent private vendor demonstration, nine testing companies showed that “Machine scoring engines did as well or better than the human graders,” as reported by Dr. Mark Shermis. In an open competition, top engines will share $100,000 prize purse to be awarded May 9 in Washington DC.
School Board Members Consider Digital & Deeper Learning
Bob Wise, Mark Edwards and Tom Vander Ark discussed digital learning at NSBA in Boston. Another session considered the potential for the Common Core to encourage deeper learning.
Less Grading, More Teaching, Deeper Learning
Less grading, more teaching. More feedback, less waiting. Fewer worksheets, more writing. Less multiple choice, deeper learning. These are the reasons I’m spending a good portion of 2012 working on online assessment. Better assessment tools means better state tests and richer teaching and learning.
SmartTech: Tab Testing, Apps, Biz Models, & Better Higher Ed
Tablet testing. We think there’s a pretty good chance that both PARCC and SBAC will allow tablets (iPads specifically) for testing. That would be good news for all the districts buying tablets but as Tom discussed in getting ready for online assessment, there are many issues…