Chapter 6. Assessment Planning

1
Chapter 6. Assessment PlanningIf 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 dont
• need to plan.
• Ive 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.

2
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
• Pretesting, Formative, Summative
• Overall assessment plan
• Specific assessment plan

3
Goals vs. Objectives

• Goals
• General areas (e.g. reading math economics)
• Goals are set by society (boards, legislatures)
• Objectives
• 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

4
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.

5
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.
6
Blooms Cognitive Taxonomythe classic cognitive
domain taxonomy . . .

• The Bloom groups 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.

7
Old Blooms vs. New BloomsNote the move from
nouns to verbs and the exchange the top two
levels
8
Affective Domain (Krathwohl, 1964)A taxonomy of
5 levels students gradually evolve into higher
levels.

1. Receiving - The lowest level the student
   passively pays attention. Without this level no
   learning can occur.
2. Responding - The student actively participates in
   the learning process, not only attends to a
   stimulus, the student also reacts in some way.
3. Valuing - The student attaches a value to (or has
   a preference for) an object, phenomenon, or piece
   of information.
4. Organizing - The student can conceptualize a
   value and value differences by comparing,
   relating and elaborating on what has been
   learned.
5. 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.

9
Affective Domain Exercise The Runaway
TrolleySome 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?

10
Psychomotor DomainAnita 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.

11
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.

12
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

13
Toward Expert Planning for Your Own
ClassroomChecklist 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.
• Dont 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.

14
Toward Expert Planning for Your Own
ClassroomMaking 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?

15
Toward Expert Planning for Your Own
ClassroomChecklist for Preparing the years . .
.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.,
  dont 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 dont assume they are
  valid).

16
Toward Expert Planning for Your Own
ClassroomChecklist for Preparing a topics or
units specific . . . Formative Summative
Assessment

• Consider a pre-test or use pre-assessment
  information to guide 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?

17
Practical Advice pour vous on building your own
domains ofClassroom 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.

18
Terms Concepts to Review andStudy on Your Own (1)

• affective domain
• Blooms taxonomy
• blueprint
• cognitive domain
• content standards
• goals

19
Terms Concepts to Review andStudy on Your Own (2)

• metacognition
• objectives
• psychomotor domain
• table of specifications
• taxonomy