Assessing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

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Assessing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse
Students

• Professional development presentation
• by Kathy Krainak

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Assessment

• A range of procedures used to gather information
  about what students know and are able to
  demonstrate.
• Qualities of good assessment include
• reliability
• validity
• fairness

Check your understanding of the above termsby
clicking on them
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Alignment

• Quality assessments should be aligned to content
  standards, teacher training/professional
  development, and classroom curricula

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Cultural bias

• How does cultural bias affect test validity?
• Test questions that contain cultural assumptions,
  or that rely on specific cultural background
  knowledge, are invalid because they do not
  evaluate the knowledge and skills they were
  intended to measure.

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Cultural bias examples

• Application problems on a Math exam that require
  specific cultural background knowledge, eg.
  national pastimes or U. S. geography
• Standardized high school history test which
  includes the question, What were two ways the
  British improved the lives of Africans?
• See Northwestern Univ. Medill Report 9 May 2007
• 3. Any exams in which students are presented with
  arbitrary scenarios that make assumptions about
  their background knowledge and that do not derive
  from their authentic learning experiences

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Accommodations

• Alterations in testing methods or procedures,
  such as
• Presentation format
• Response format
• Timing or scheduling format
• Test setting
• Language in which test is written
• Accommodations allow the students abilities to
  be assessed, not his or her English language
  skills

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Question What do the following have in common?
Self-Assessment Peer-Assessment Dialogue Journals
Scaffolded Essays Cooperative Group Assessment Portfolio
Play-Based Assessment Performance-Based Assessment

• Choose from the following answers
• They are examples of high-stakes tests.
• These tests are neither valid nor reliable.
• They are examples of alternative assessments.

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Alternative Assessment

• DefinitionAssessments that are derived directly
  from classroom activities, instruction, or group
  work and that provide an alternative to
  traditional assessments.
• Alternative Assessments measure a students
  performance on a skill or subject area. They are
  usually scored with a rubric. Scoring tends to
  be more subjective than scoring of traditional
  assessments.

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Alternative Assessment

• Advantages
• Focus on documenting individual student growth
  over time, rather than comparing students with
  one another
• Emphasis on students' strengths (what they know),
  rather than weaknesses (what they don't know)
• Consideration given to learning styles, language
  proficiencies, cultural/educational backgrounds,
  and grade levels of students.

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Alternative assessments examples
Dialogue journals Interactive, ongoing correspondence between students and teachers. Students determine the topics and participate at their level of English language proficiency
Audio/Videorecordings Student oral readings, presentations, dramatics, interviews, or conferences (with teacher or peers)
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Alternative assessments examples (cont.)
Reader response logs Student-written responses or reactions to a piece of literature. Students may respond to questions that encourage critical thinking or write a reflection.
Content area logs Entries can be made on a form with these two headings - What I Understood- What I Didn't Understand
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Equity issues influencing learning assessment

• Encouragement of native language development
• Equal access to curriculum
• Equal participation in meaningful interaction
  with challenging subject matter
• Real world application and success in learning
  challenging content
• vs. rote memorization of facts or watered-down
  curricula

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Guiding principles

• Assessment strategies should
• Help teachers make instructional decisions
• Help teachers find out what students CAN do, not
  what they cannot do
• Have a specific objective-linked purpose
• Be derived from authentic learning experiences
• Show student progress over time
• Reflect the holistic context for learning
• Affective responses toward the subject area,
  classroom environment, parental and cultural
  attitudes toward schooling, and physiological
  needs

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Technical qualities of good assessments

• Reliability
• The assessment should gather consistent evidence
  of skills, regardless of the examiner, time, or
  place of administration.

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Technical qualities of good assessments

• Validity
• The assessment should measure the
  knowledge/skills it is intended to measure.

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Technical qualities of good assessments

• Fairness
• The assessment should be unbiased in regards to
  the students language, gender, culture, and
  overall abilities.

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Question What do the following have in common?

• Your choice was
• They are examples of high-stakes tests
• Answer A is incorrect. High-stakes tests are
  typically standardized achievement tests.
  Students normally take these tests once or twice
  a year, and the results may be tied to school
  funding, and/or accreditation.
• The assessments listed here are not typically
  used for high-stakes testing.

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Question What do the following have in common?

• Your choice was .
• These tests are neither valid nor reliable.
• Answer B is incorrect. With the use of rubrics
  and other scoring devices, these tests can be
  both valid and reliable. They can also
  effectively demonstrate a students progress over
  time.

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YES! These are examples of alternative
assessments