1 / 7

Cornerstones Case Study: Assessing the Skill Areas

Cornerstones Case Study: Assessing the Skill Areas. Christine Coombe. Ms. Wright’s & Mr. Knott’s Cornerstone Case Study. High school ESL and Spanish teachers Teaching load: each teach 2 advanced-level ESL classes Students from many language backgrounds & cultures

rad
Télécharger la présentation

Cornerstones Case Study: Assessing the Skill Areas

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Cornerstones Case Study:Assessing the Skill Areas Christine Coombe

  2. Ms. Wright’s & Mr. Knott’s Cornerstone Case Study • High school ESL and Spanish teachers • Teaching load: each teach 2 advanced-level ESL classes • Students from many language backgrounds & cultures • Use integrated-skills textbook, communicative methodology

  3. Their Test • They wanted to keep it simple. • No time to construct an integrated skills test, so they decided to base grades solely on a reading test. • Ms. Wright hinted to one class that an article from yesterday’s front page of the newspaper might be the focus of the exam. • Task: “Read this newspaper article and answer the questions.” • The focus of the article “Hydro-electric Turbines” was not from any of their unit themes • Ss received 10 MCQs focusing on local information only because main idea Qs take more time to construct • Most Qs had 4 response options but some Qs only had 3 • Ms Wright enlarged the article by 50% so her Ss could read it better.

  4. Test Administration Procedures • Test was administered to Ms. Wright’s classes on Monday morning and to Mr. Knott’s classes the following Wednesday. • Ms. Wright gave one class period; Mr. Knott allowed Ss two class periods to complete the test • Mr. Knott translated some of the difficult words in Spanish for his Spanish-speaking Ss • He let all his Ss use dictionaries to look up unknown words • During the test, a student noticed that there was no answer for Question 3 so Mr. Knott did not count that item • No one in Mrs. Wright’s class noticed

  5. Grading Procedures • Neither told their Ss when to expect their grades. • Both were busy, so they graded their own Ss papers over several days during the next week. • Ss got their tests back 10 days later. • The teachers impressionistically thought it was a good exam because almost all Ss got As. • To achieve a better curve for one of her classes, Ms. Wright added 5 pts. to some Ss’ papers

  6. Post-exam Follow Up • Ms. Wright entered grades in her grade book but didn’t annotate or analyze them. • Mr. Knott realized he gave the papers to the Ss before he entered the grades. He asked for them back after the students had them for 2 days. • At end of semester, there were too many A’s so the administrator asked them to ‘review’ their marks. • Ss thought the exam was worth 25% of the final grade, it was then downgraded to 15%. • Next year they plan to reuse the same test but will switch to T/F questions.

  7. What’s wrong with their test? • Which cornerstones of testing did they violate? • Validity • Reliability • Practicality • Washback • Authenticity • Transparency • Security

More Related