Archive
component:how.assessment
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.
Auto Essay Scoring Headlines NCME, Addresses Critics
Some writers and teachers of writing have been quick to criticize or make light of the Automated Student Assessment Prize (ASAP). The team running this project (which I co-direct) has been driven by a clear mission: we want students to write more on state tests and in classroom. We want teachers…
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.
Scaling Grades for Success
The no-zero policy is a hotly debated and emotionally charged topic on the national scene. Letters to the editors and blog comments from angry citizens flare up whenever districts or schools adopt the policy. One letter to the editor in my community stated, “I’m appalled that leaders don’t punish no kids for bad work. Kid’s got be held accountable.”
New Survey Shows Demand for Personalized & Adaptive Learning Assessments
The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) and Grunwald Associates LLC released today "For every child, multiple measures," a study that evaluates parent and teacher support for timely, actionable assessments that monitor individual student performance.
Is Your School Preparing Learners for Success? 5 Questions to Consider
This post by Shane Krukowski first appeared on Innovative Educator on 11/23/11. Shane is CEO of Project Foundry, a great project-based learning platform. “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” ~C. S. Lewis Redesigning education involves much…
ETS Advice on Automated Scoring
ETS assessment scientist Randy Bennett recently released seven recommendations on automated scoring. Race to the Top funding of state assessment consortia triggered Dr. Bennett's paper.