Mastering Assessment Strategies for Educators

1. TIME for Faculty Dr. Jeffrey M. Kenton January 18, 2013

2. Who Am I? • BA in Biology, University of Iowa • MS in Education (Instructional Technology), Iowa State University • PhD in Education (Instructional Technology), Iowa State University • Professor of Educational Technology at Towson University • Assistant Dean of the College of Education at Towson University

3. How did I get here? • I wanted desperately to learn and understand EVERYTHING that I found interesting • I am a very curious person • At every level, I found that the people who were helping me learn were either • Helping Too Little • Helping Too Late

4. How did I get here? • This frustration led me to try to figure out how people learn, and what kinds of information people needed to be successful in learning • Understanding the frustration helped to motivate me as a student • Understanding the frustration helped me to try to be more clear as an instructor

5. Why are YOU here today? • Spend too much time on grading • Need to design some assessments • Want to hear what others are doing • Excel at assessment • Continental Breakfast

6. Field Trip Allegory End of Week End of Day As Desired

7. What’s Your GPS Strategy? • In your group, please share: • What kind of courses do you teach? • What types of assessments do you use most frequently and when? • What types of assessments do you administer only occasionally and when do you use them? • What are your “once-a-course” type of assessments?

8. Field Trip Conclusion End of Week End of Day As Desired Far off course Daily Fixes Reach Target

9. The TIME Principles • Timely • Informative • Meaningful • Expedient

10. What do I want? • How am I doing? • How can I use what I know? • Acknowledge correct answers • Provide help for students who answered questions incorrectly

11. Teaching as Diagnosis • Teacher requests some information • Learners provide their responses • Teacher uses that information to address student concerns or to change instructional tactics

12. Which is the most common? • Weekly Quizzes • Lecture Questions • Research Paper • Presentations • Homework

13. Classroom Questioning • 80% are at the Knowledge and Comprehension levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy • Those are the lowest two cognitive levels

14. ClassroomQuestioning • Knowledge: • In which decade did the US Civil War take place? • What is 12 times 5? • Comprehension: • Rephrase the paragraph in your own words • Compare the two statements on the facts presented

15. What Kind of Approach would I like? • Assessment as a Dialogue

16. Rephrase these Questions • In small groups, rephrase the following questions so they are appropriate for the Application, Analysis, Synthesis or Evaluation levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy • There are lists of “Blooms Verbs” on your tables

17. The Four Questions • Which is heavier? A mole of Oxygen, or a mole of Carbon? • Which two cities are featured in “A Tale of Two Cities”? • From whom did President Jefferson make the Louisiana Purchase? • What are the names of two French Impressionist painters?

18. These Higher Order Questions • Lead to more student engagement with the content • Lead to more accurate estimates of student understanding • Can give teachers the feedback they need to make modifications to lessons

19. Who Else Asks Higher Order Questions? YOU DON'T KNOW JACK®

20. How about for other Assessments? • Just remember TIME for assessments and feedback • Timely • Informative • Meaningful • Expedient

21. Timely Assessment • Assess when the student knows as much as possible • Give feedback quickly, so students know where they stand, and so the student has time to remediate, when necessary T

22. TimelyExample • Example: Consider the time frame between testing and getting results from large-scale assessments (i.e. SAT) • It is currently three months. • How long does it take to get grades back on student projects? T

23. Informative Assessment • Assess in ways that make students aware of their present level of understanding • Acknowledge the things that students do well, as well as the things that students need to correct • Only acknowledging the problems makes students not want to read your comments. • Provide sufficient detail in the feedback, so students can identify the cause of errors T I

24. Informative Example • * T I

25. Meaningful Assessment • Our most common assessment tool is not being used in the most effective way • Often Papers, Projects and Quizzes are too large-scale • Feedback does not come back quickly enough • Too little or too late T I M

26. Meaningful Assessment • Assess in ways that have relevance and contextual importance for students • Provide feedback that is as close to real-life feedback as possible T I M

27. Meaningful Assessment • Example: A simulation of DC electrical circuits. • Students asked to create DC circuits so that a bulb will light • Feedback is whether the bulb lights or not. T I M

28. Expedient Assessment • Assessments do not need to be complicated • Assessments do not need to be large-scale • They just need to give students an opportunity to display what they know • They should also be easy to grade, so students get results quickly T E I M

29. Expedient Example • Concept Maps (#16) • Minute Papers (#6) • One Sentence Summary (#13) • Muddiest Point (#7) • Exit Ticket T E I M

30. Exit Ticket • Using a half-sheet of paper or corkboard.me, • Let me know two things • Given what you have heard so far, do you think you can apply what you have learned in your next class? • What aspect of the approach should I explain better?

31. Summary

32. Closing If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its entire life believing it is stupid. – Albert Einstein

33. TIPS and Learning Outcomes Assessments

34. In Table Groups • Using the materials you brought with you, discuss with your table mates how you might use some of these principles and approaches in your classes

35. Report Outs • What ideas did you formulate for use in your classes? • Let me know • What content area you teach • What types of classes you teach • Your ideas for assessment in those classes