Chapter 7: Expanding Assessment Practices

Classroom assessment is arguably one of the least understood but integral elements of any coherent teaching and learning process. Reforms intended to improve instruction and curriculum have not succeeded largely because of their lack of alignment with the assessment processes. Assessment has always come packaged with curriculum and instruction. However, traditionally, final examinations—or summative evaluations—were the primary means of measuring success or failure at the end of a school year. Working as a gate keeping and sorting mechanism, such examinations were not used as a basis for constructive feedback to the learners, but only as an announcement of their success or failure in a prescribed course of study. The recent reforms in assessment have, however, tended to expand the process of assessment to cover the entire course of studies. The notions of authentic and continuous assessment have challenged and, in many instances, replaced the earlier emphases on summative tests and examinations.

In many educational systems around the world, however, final end-of-the-year exams are still the norm. In such systems, the teachers usually have little firsthand experience or training in meaningful classroom assessment. Because of the high stakes attached to them, teacher-directed assessments tend to become mirror images of and preparation for final examinations. When this happens, teaching to tests becomes the norm. Moreover, if the tests are aligned less with active learning and more with direct instruction, they push the teaching practices to be more teacher-centered. Under such circumstance, the changes introduced in instruction and curriculum to promote learner-centered education are less likely to bear fruit. Recognizing the critical role that teacher educators can play in helping teachers change their assessment practices, this chapter is designed as a survey of relevant knowledge on assessment.

This chapter will also invite you to consider a repertoire of assessment techniques and strategies to help inform your own assessment needs as a teacher educator as well as model best practices for student teachers. This exposition on assessment is not intended to be comprehensive. It is accompanied by a set of prompts and suggested seminars in which teacher educators and prospective teachers will be encouraged to clarify and articulate these ideas to their particular contexts. The list of further readings appended at the end of this chapter will also help you further explore this topic.

Influence of Assessment on Pedagogy

"Classroom assessment is arguably one of the least understood but integral elements of any coherent teaching and learning process."

Recent developments in cognitive psychology and learning theory have had major implications for all the critical elements of educational processes, such as instruction, curriculum and assessment. On the one hand, as discussed in earlier chapters, these changes have influenced the underlying assumptions about learning and teaching in reforms aimed at instruction and curriculum, emphasizing a shift from being didactic and teacher-centered to more learner-centered. On the other hand, these shifts in curriculum and instruction have also demanded parallel changes in the assessment processes seeking to broaden the scope, frequency and methods of assessment.

Recent developments in cognitive psychology and learning theory have had a major impact on our understanding of classroom-based assessment practices. In the last two decades or so, assessment researchers have been increasingly questioning traditional testing practices (Anderson, 1998; Resnick & Resnick, 1992; Shepard, 2000, 2001; Wiggins, 1989). The overall impact of these developments has been a profound shift from traditional end-of-the-year examinations to a system of continuous assessment throughout the school year. Continuous assessment has become an important aspect of many efforts to reform educational systems.

As often happens in the case of reforms, the new proposals for assessment are gradually finding a place side by side with traditional and well entrenched methods of assessing learning. Beginning teachers, therefore, are likely to find themselves confronted with a mix of suggestions about assessment. In the case of instruction, we have already discussed the ways in which apprenticeship of observation influences teachers' perceptions of what constitutes good teaching. Likewise, the student teachers' perceptions of assessment are also influenced by the narrow range of assessment practices to which student teachers were subjected as students. Furthermore, many countries have existing formal systems of assessment that, more often than not, privilege the traditional end-of-the-year examinations. The beginning teachers are confronted with a dilemma when faced with the challenge of simultaneously responding to the competing demands of existing testing requirements and the more comprehensive techniques that include formative as well as summative assessments. Teacher educators have a responsibility to help the student teachers anticipate these challenges in their particular contexts.

What are Traditional Assessments?

Generally, the term traditional assessments has come to be applied to most exams, paper and pencil tests, quizzes and other selected response type assessments. Although constructed response questions, such as essay questions, are sometimes also used in traditional assessments. We can call these assessments traditional simply because they are part of a tradition of scientific measurement of human learning that dominated assessment of learning achievements throughout the 20th century (Shepard, 2000). The term traditional does not refer just to the form of testing instruments, but also to the behaviorist and associationist models of learning that underpin them. According to this perspective, knowledge is broken down into bits and pieces. On this view, then, learning implies accumulation of those bits of knowledge in a sequential manner (For a detailed exposition on associationist and behaviorist perspectives on learning, see, Skinner, 1996; Thorndike, 1922). Tests are used to ensure that students have mastered a certain level before proceeding to the next level in the hierarchy of knowledge. Also, the traditional view of assessment does not distinguish between the tests and learning. As Shepard (2000) puts it, "tests are isomorphic with learning (test = learning)" (Pg. 5). That is to say, the test scores are assumed to be representative of their learning.

It is beyond the scope of this manual to include a detailed analysis of the functions of national examinations and traditional assessment methods. However, a brief description of some salient characteristics of examinations and traditional assessment as they apply to teaching and learning in the classroom is in order.

The Divide Between Learning Processes and Assessment

Traditional assessment is based on an interrelated set of philosophical beliefs and theoretical assumptions (Bintz, 1991). These are further outlined and compared with the philosophical beliefs and theoretical assumptions of continuous assessment.

Emphasis on wrong [and right] answers

Typically, traditional assessments are used to sort students who know the right answers from those who do not get it right. In other words, traditional assessment creates a system of classification based on right and wrong answers.

Some critiques of examinations focus on their emphasis of wrong answers. In traditional assessments, the amount of wrong answers in an exam are juxtaposed against correct answers. When classroom assessment uses traditional assessment tools, feedback to students is often centered on wrong answers, and the right answers are barely acknowledged. When going over multiple choice tests teachers often look at and discuss the wrong answers rather than focusing on what students do know. Furthermore, since the right answers are also mostly selected responses, they do not typically permit a wholesome discussion enabling the students to deeply understand the worthwhile ideas.

How does this emphasis on right and wrong influence instruction? Most teachers are aware of the pressures to cover a syllabus before examinations. Believing they are helping students to learn, teachers provide students with opportunities to practice answering possible test questions. Most teachers feel the students understand a concept if they get it right on the test. Shepard (1997, pg. 12), however, found that varying the ways in which some questions were asked often reduced student scores, thus indicating a lack of understanding of the concept and an efficient grasp of only a particular solution. Students, through classroom preparation for tests (teachers teaching to the test), were only able to get the right answer if the questions were sufficiently close enough to the practiced items. When the test items were configured differently but aimed at gathering information about students' knowledge of the same concept, the students' performance plunged. In other words, the students were unable to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the concepts being tested. This research confirms what you may know from experience that teaching to the test, and 'cramming' for tests does not always lead to deep understandings of the subject. Students often note that after exams, what they have memorized is easily forgotten.

So while the emphasis on the wrong answers reinforces the feeling of not getting it right among the students, even getting it right does not guarantee deeper understanding of the subject matter. Furthermore, due to the high stakes associated with summative assessments, the instruction is reduced to teaching to the test. As Burkhardt, Fraser, and Ridgway (1990) put it, What You Test is What you Get (WYTIWYG). As such, then, the testing has important consequences for what goes on among the test takers themselves, in the classroom and in society. So profound are the social consequences of testing that some argue for including the consequences of testing in measures of validity (Shepard, 1997). The familiar documented consequences of traditional end-of-the-year examinations on classroom learning are: reduced time for practice and reflection because of test preparation (which can include teaching to the test), an emphasis on learning tasks that simulate test questions rather than on more authentic learning experiences, an orientation toward knowledge as something that is acquired rather than constructed, a focus on external motivators to learning (passing or getting good grades) and reduced class time for more meaningful learning tasks.

Summative in nature

Traditional assessments such as tests, quizzes, short answers and true or false are mostly summative in nature. They often don't provide the teacher or student with feedback that is meant to inform instruction. One may argue that students learn when preparing for tests, yet learning sometimes involves revisiting the same topic again and again until it is fully understood. The summative nature of the assessments, however, prevents both teachers and students from revisiting the topics in a meaningful way. Used in this way, the summative assessment can be used for rewards or punishments but not as diagnostic tools to improve learning of all students.

Aligned with transmission modes of teaching and learning

The emphasis on recall of information in traditional assessments provides only a partial picture of what students may know. Since the students are expected to select or construct brief responses, the traditional assessments are easy to score but more aligned with transmission modes of teaching. In most cases there is only one correct answer – that which was taught and hopefully memorized in a way that it can be recalled on the test. This type of assessment sets up a strong expectation for teachers to follow transmission modes of teaching.

Teacher as the source of knowledge

This model of assessment does not assume students to be active participants in the process of learning. Since all knowledge is assumed to be pre-existing bits of facts which must be transmitted through the process of education, students must be prepared to faithfully receive this knowledge from the teacher. In Freire's critique of banking education, the role of the instructor is to 'fill' the students minds with what is believed to be true knowledge (Freire, 1990). Since the teacher is always positioned as the transmitter and the student as a receiver, and since the assessment is typically focused on regurgitating the bits of knowledge so received, a hierarchical mode of control is set up. Such models of assessment thus privilege an arrangement in which the teacher alone has the prerogative to make decisions about the form of learning as well as assessment (Anderson, 1998).

The Alternative Model of Assessment

Educational processes essentially involve bringing together of the subject matter to be learned—encapsulated in the official curricula—and the learner. According to the traditional perspectives, the process of instruction transmits pre-existing bits of knowledge to students. Yet, this is not how humans have produced knowledge in the first place. Construction of knowledge in myriad branches of learning involves an arduous process of problem solving. It is in the process of addressing the problems posed by natural and social circumstances that natural and social sciences have developed. Thus, the traditional methods of education deprive learners of the knowledge of experience and engagement that gave rise to it in the first place.

The alternative views of teaching and learning attempt to integrate the processes of knowledge construction and discovery with teaching and learning in general. As Grundy (1987, p.37) states:

The notion that atomistic pieces of learning can be identified and measured is an assumption that trivializes the teaching-learning act. Education consists of more than a list of separate pieces of knowledge or behaviors which can be identified and measured.

This involves articulating a view of teaching and learning that puts premium on sharing, discovery, dialogue and debate as opposed to a unidirectional flow of knowledge from the teacher.

This shift in perspective also creates the need for re-articulating the purposes and requirements for assessment. The term 'authentic assessment' has also been used by many assessment scholars to represent this shift. Learning tasks that are authentic are real instances of performances as opposed to proxies of the learning objectives. In authentic tasks, the student solves real world problems and performs real world tasks. Table 7.1 summarizes some of the shifts that have taken place in the understanding and practices of assessment.

Expansion and Diversification of Assessment Strategies

If learners are active participants in a continuing process of learning, then the assessment instruments also need to be expanded to obtain meaningful information about multiple aspects of student learning. Furthermore, it must be conducted not just at the end-points but throughout the process of learning.

The purpose of assessment under this regime is not just to sort students into high and low achievers, but to provide constructive and continuous feedback aimed at improving their learning. Continuous assessment has become an important aspect of many efforts to reform educational systems. It emphasizes the inclusion of formative assessments in defining the overall repertoire of assessment. Furthermore, it also pushes the educators to expand the nature of testing items to cover various classroom experiences. In a nutshell, this emphasis considers the traditional division between instruction and assessment problematic.

Expanding classroom assessment beyond summative assessments and diversification of the nature of assessment tasks allows students to be engaged in a wider variety of learning experiences. As was discussed in the preceding section, traditional assessments tend to narrow the curriculum to learning tasks that emphasize recall, accumulation of knowledge and a unidirectional flow of information (from teacher to student). Assessments that emphasize recall of information are consistent with a transmission and teacher-centered approach to teaching and learning.

Why Expand on Classroom Assessment Practices at the Teachers' College level?

Teacher education institutes are incubators for reform and change. Modeling a broad range of assessment practices will help student teachers gain authentic experiences of authentic assessment. This is consistent with the general approach of teaching and learning that aims to provide students with enabling experiences. As with LCE, for student teachers to get a robust understanding of what continuous assessment is and how to use it, they must experience it firsthand. As teacher educators model good continuous assessment in the college classroom and make their assessment practices explicit, student teachers gain a deeper understanding of the practices and purposes of continuous assessment. When teacher educators ask student teachers to reflect on the assessment practices used in the college classroom, they also gain a deeper understanding of the types of continuous assessment practices that could be used in the primary school classroom. Good practices in continuous assessment at the college also help student teachers learn and provide teacher educators with a well formed picture of what student teachers know, understand and can do.

Assessment Strategies for the College Classroom

This section describes some strategies that could be used in assessing student teachers. The strategies or methods described here are of three types. The first are strategies that help teacher educators assess the knowledge, skills and attitudes of student teachers prior to the introduction of a topic or a subject. The second set of strategies emphasizes assessing higher order thinking skills. Lastly, you will find examples of assessment that focus on gathering student teacher feedback on instruction. These techniques are easily administered, can be adapted to many subjects, give student teachers opportunities to show what they know, provide the teacher educator with valuable information about his or her instruction, and include student teachers in reflecting on the assessment methods being used.

Assessing Prior Knowledge

"...apprenticeship of observation influences teachers' perceptions of what constitutes good teaching."

Teachers often feel constrained by time and content when trying to cover the curriculum. Adding an assessment at the beginning of a unit or topic feels like a luxury to most teacher educators. Many simply hold oral discussions with students to find a springboard for introducing a topic or subject. As a result of the limited and somewhat unsystematic methods of gathering information, many teacher educators might begin their lessons with assumptions about student knowledge that is could be quite inaccurate. Making false assumptions about students' knowledge and competencies can lead to wasted time. When students do not have the prerequisite knowledge or skills for what is taught and the teacher assumes the opposite, students may feel frustrated and confused and may be unable to keep pace with the lessons. Conversely, if student teachers have a firm grasp of the topics being presented, they may be bored and feel they are not being challenged intellectually. In both cases precious teaching and learning opportunities are lost.

Assessing prior knowledge in a systematic way can include lengthy and elaborate written, practical and performance tests, or it could be short, easily administered tasks designed to gather relevant information from students in a short period of time. The strategies described here are easy to administer and score, and provide useful information that can feed back into the teacher educators' lessons.

It is important to keep in mind that assessing students' prior knowledge is not usually an opportunity for grading. Marks can be given for the purposes of indicating where a student is in relation to stated criteria and making comparisons at a later date. One of the main purposes of assessing prior knowledge in the classroom is to inform instruction. Teachers need to be prepared to have the feedback from the assessments influence how, what, and when they will teach.

The following strategies require some categorization of the data (answers) in order to make the exercise more useful to the teacher. Simple sorting procedures and more elaborate rubrics may be used.

It is not always necessary to include all of the students in an assessment of prior knowledge. In some cases taking a random sample of 20% of the students may serve the purpose of finding out what students know prior to teaching a subject or topic. This is especially true for large classes and when assessing practical skills that may require a lengthy administration and preparation such as a science practical test.

Many of the assessment methods used to determine the level of prior knowledge of student teachers can also be used at the end of a topic in a more summative type of assessment. A comparison between the starting and ending assessments can provide valuable insights on student growth.

Background knowledge probe

Background knowledge probes are short, simple questionnaires prepared by the instructor and administered prior to the start of a unit or new topic of instruction. The probes are directed at finding out specific information on students' prior knowledge. The feedback can be used to help determine the starting point for instruction and where prior knowledge and experiences of students can be woven into the lessons. The probes can be in the form of a questionnaire, short answer questions, multiple-choice questions, or list making. For example, in an introductory art class, you might ask the students to list and illustrate the elements of drawing.

Profiles of Admirable Individuals: Assessing Attitudes and Values

In teacher education, the first image that comes to mind for this activity is to ask student teachers to describe their favorite teacher. Community members, friends, colleagues, national and international figures can all be the focus of such a task if it is relevant to the attitudes you want to know about. Reading the profiles helps the teacher get a sense of the values of the student as they relate to a topic or subject. The teacher can list the characteristics that students most admire.

The purpose of this exercise is to give students the opportunity to articulate their beliefs and values. They must describe the characteristics of the individual they are writing about and tell why those characteristics are admirable. If attitudinal development is part of the course, the teacher can use the profiles as a springboard for teaching about the relevant attitudes.

Responding to cases

Another method of assessing students' values and attitudes is by having them respond to cases or case studies. In this technique the teacher develops a scenario in which attitudes and values play a central role in responding to the case. For example, students may be asked to write a short essay describing what they would do in the following context:

You have just started the school year with your new class of 60 grade four learners. The principal has just informed you that one of the students in your class is HIV positive. Although you are aware of the deadly nature of the virus, you know that with proper considerations for safety the student poses no major threat to the other students in the class.

Would you tell the other students in the class of the HIV positive student? Why or why not? Would you let it be known to the whole school that the student is HIV positive? Would the student receive special attention from you? Why or why not?

Practical skills test

It is not unusual for teacher educators in almost any context in the world to wish for their incoming students to possess more skills than they have. Having more skilled students usually equates with getting more accomplished in the course. Writing, mathematics and science skills are often the weakest areas of incoming student teachers.

Pretests of skills can provide specific information about students' entry-level skills. The results of the pretests can be used to inform teaching. Well-designed pretests of practical skills can help verify what we might know intuitively about students. In addition, these tests can help to identify the level of gaps in student knowledge and skills and what areas specifically need to be addressed. In science, for example, teacher educators may suspect that student teachers are very unskilled in using basic science equipment because of their lack of exposure to equipment at secondary school. A practical test of student skills in measuring might be set up at the beginning of the year to test student skills in this area. Using a thermometer, measuring cylinder, voltmeter, balances and such could be part of the test. Analyzing the results of the tests would indicate to teacher educators students' weak areas. Preparing instruction to address those weak areas would be the next step in using the results of the tests.

Practical skills pretests usually take a lot of time to set up and administer. Taking a random sample of about 20% of the students to participate in the tests would be sufficient for the purposes of generalizing to the whole cohort. If time permits, an assessment of all incoming student teachers could be carried out and matched with student performance at the end of the semester or course to get an indication of student growth in those skills.

Assessing Higher Order Thinking Levels

As described in an earlier section, one of the weaknesses of exams, tests and other selected response assessments is that they often are unable to adequately assess students' thinking at higher cognitive levels. One of our aims as teacher educators is not only to present information to student teachers but to also engage them in thinking. The assessment strategies described in this section encourage students to think instead of merely recall facts by memory.

Portfolio assessment

Arts and design fields have long used portfolios to record a series of products and track performance. Portfolios contain a selection of student work collected over time. Many of the pieces in the portfolio enter with a mark. That is, the portfolio may include some or all of a students' graded work. Exhibiting or showcasing student work for other students, teachers or the community allows student teachers to synthesize knowledge in order to discuss their work with others. For student teachers, portfolios can be compared with tool kits. Materials, teaching aids and information from reports and essays developed as part of coursework become part of the kits that student teachers take with them to the field.

Concept maps

Concept maps, sometimes called word webs, are diagrams of words or concepts that show relationships between and among concepts. Phrases are written on connecting lines between the concepts which are inside circles. Concept maps help organize knowledge through a visual representation of the relationships among ideas.

Concept maps are often useful when done at the start of a unit or topic to gain an understanding of what students already know. At the end of teaching and learning in that topic students are given a second opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the concept(s) by drawing a second concept map. The teacher compares the two concept maps and, based on predetermined criteria set out in a rubric, assigns a grade.

Students can also be asked to compare their own before and after concept maps. After some time for reflection, students can discuss the progress they made as evidenced by the maps. This could be followed by having students analyze their own learning by writing a short narrative. Teachers can also ask students to explain how they learned what they did. In this way we ask students to think about thinking. This metacognition improves thinking about learning by student teachers and helps them understand their learning process.

Concept maps can be used in any subject, but they require that students know how to make them. By first demonstrating to the students and then practicing concept maps with familiar topics, students soon learn the skill. Because concept maps are graphic representations of knowledge, the task may disadvantage students who have difficulty expressing themselves visually and spatially. Care should be taken not to use the technique too frequently.

Projects

Projects are long-term tasks in which students have the opportunity to carry out in-depth study of a particular topic, usually of their choice. Projects may be composed of a variety of activities and tasks focused on finding out answers to one broad question or set of questions. They also foster knowledge creation and learning the organizing concepts and skills of a particular field.

Projects are time intensive. Teacher educators must be willing and skilled at giving guidance. They have to be willing to put in the time to provide support where it is needed. Student teachers often need help formulating and narrowing a question or topic, accessing information, synthesizing information, integrating book knowledge with personal experience, opinion or relating the book knowledge to a particular local context. Parts of the project may be assessed separately and an overall grade given to the whole. Displays and exhibits of projects provide opportunities for students to vocalize their understandings.

Analytic memo

In an analytic memo students are asked to be in a position in which they have to communicate information to others. Students simulate memo or letter writing to a client, community member, parent, principal or other stakeholder. In writing the memo, the student has to analyze the topic under consideration and communicate that to others who may not be as familiar with the topic. The student is required to write in concise and clear language on the topic. The role of the student in writing the memo can vary with the context.

Some examples of analytical memo writing are:

• As a principal, inform parents of new assessment policy at school and parents' role in it.
• As a school board member, notify the community of the nature of upcoming readiness tests and parents' role in assisting children prepare for going to school.
• As the town or village leader make the case for district support for improved village sanitation.
• As a language specialist, send a memo to other teachers in the school to advise them on ways to improve student writing in their subject.
  Often the analytic memo requires the student to analyze a situation and inform someone about a situation in order to assist the person making a decision. The communication of the information takes on a greater role in this type of assessment as opposed to a short constructed answer to a question.

Invented dialogues

In an invented dialogue, students are asked to develop an imaginary conversation between two people or things. It is helpful to focus the dialogue on a particular topic. Students write the dialogue and then it can be presented orally. The process helps students synthesize knowledge of people, events, processes and historical contexts. Examples would include:

• A conversation between a tourist and a health worker about HIV/AIDS
• A discussion between the moon and the sea about tides
• A dialogue between Kwame Nkhurma and Barack Obama about globalization
• A conversation between roots of a plant and the soil

Making models

Models are physical representations of concepts, processes, events or systems. They are usually constructed in three dimensions. The process of model creation involves synthesis of prior knowledge, analysis and creativity. Models can be made of recycled or throw away materials. Examples of topics for models are timelines, sentence structure, statistical concepts, geometrical and science objects and concepts.

Human tableau/role play/dramatization/mime

Most good teachers use drama or role play to depict historical events, controversial contemporary issues or future scenarios involving people. Human tableaus, role-plays and mimes are all types of dramatization that are sometimes powerful vehicles for self-expression and learning. In addition to playing human roles, the characters in these dramas may represent inanimate objects and processes. By having students dramatize erosion, for example, they must discuss and analyze the process in order to assign roles and script their parts. A human tableau of the water cycle might require students to come dressed up as clouds, rivers, plants and rain. In preparing for the presentation, students have to analyze and make appropriate decisions on the actors' scripts, actions, background and costumes.

Discussions following the dramas are important to ensure that analogies made in the presentation are clear and accurate. It is also an opportunity to see how analogies do not apply. One type of questions following a dramatization is "What did you see?" or "What did you learn?" These questions allow different perspectives to bubble up to the surface and create a platform for dialogue. Criteria for assessing a role-play would include aspects of communication, creativity, accuracy of content and depth of analysis.

Journals

We often think of journal writing as the domain of language teaching. Journals can be very powerful tools for synthesis and reflection for all subjects and levels. In subjects other than languages, and even in languages, journal writing is not meant to focus on the language used in the writing but rather the process of writing and what is revealed in the process. The process also contributes to improved writing skills.

Assessing journals can be time consuming and difficult. Their purpose is to provide practice in communicating their understanding through the written word. For most journal writing, feedback from the teacher is usually more important than assigning marks for accuracy and neatness. When it is appropriate to assess particular entries, it may be helpful to create model answers and a rating scale or rubric to be applied to student work. Some journal entries may be given marks on predetermined criteria.

Interviews

Interviewing students to find out what they know is time-consuming. This is why it is not a favored assessment method. The value in the method is, however, very high. Students can be interviewed individually, in pairs or in small focus groups by the teacher educator. For many students, the opportunity to have a direct dialogue with the teacher in a context other than in the class setting provides unique opportunities for self-expression. Using equipment, resource materials and other regalia from class can help focus the discussion. By talking to students individually or in small groups, a teacher educator can gain insights that may never be revealed in other assessment situations.
In primary schools this technique is actually used extensively by some teachers. It is most often carried out by a teacher having a student come up to the teacher's desk or to a corner of the room while other students are carrying out individual silent tasks at their seats. Spacing interviews over time prevents the teacher from being overburdened.

Scoring and Grading Tools

Most assessment tasks can be scored, given marks or graded. It may not, however, be appropriate to assign marks or grades to some assessment pieces. The nature and purpose of the assignment will help determine if an assessment receives a score. Tasks that focus on attitudes or that are meant for practice may require feedback to the student. In most cases, however, setting criteria for how something should be assessed is sometimes a difficult task. Here are some general guidelines for scoring:

• Decide whether giving a grade is appropriate or not.
• Set criteria for grading.
• Criteria can be general or specific.
• Let students know the criteria.
• Develop the scoring tool.
• Keep it simple

Rating Scales

Rating scales can be useful when a range of responses are expected from an assessment task. Rating scales include quantitative (numbers) and qualitative (words) descriptors. Because of their simplicity, they are relatively efficient for focused tasks. An example is given in Table 7.2.

Some guidelines for using rating scales:

• Use a quantitative scale and qualitative description.
• Use 4-7 divisions. We are not very good at discriminating the differences as the numbers increase.
• Keep descriptors simple.
• Group items on the scale in the order in which they will likely be rated.

Analytic and Holistic Rubrics

Gallagher (1998, p.224-226) delineates scoring rubrics into the holistic and the analytic approach. The holistic approach is a more general approach to scoring student performance and is more subjective and less reliable. Criteria are stated in broad terms and could apply to other tasks and activities as well as the one being assessed. Holistic rubrics are often used to assign marks to portfolios, projects and other multi-faceted assignments. See Appendix A for more information on holistic rubrics.

The analytic approach details more of what is expected in a perfect answer and assigns point values to each. In an essay, an analytic rubric specifies all the aspects and components of an answer that should be included if the student is to get full credit. Partial credit is given according to what is specified in the rubric. The analytic rubric, when constructed properly, allows for greater objectivity in scoring. For more information on analytic rubrics, please see Appendix B.

Checklists

Checklists present a dichotomy of performance. The checklist indicates if the student can do the particular task (or knows the material) or is unable to do the task. The checklist is useful for a range of tasks that students are required to perform regardless of the level of skill demonstrated. Checklists can often be used when there are a large number of elements or tasks to be assessed. In science, for example, a checklist could be constructed to determine if students are able to perform an array of laboratory tasks such as using various instruments and apparatus, follow a number of safety procedures, and measuring some objects. Table 7.3 is an example of a checklist.

Providing Constructive and Timely Feedback

Marking and scoring student work in both quantitative and qualitative ways should be aimed at providing student teachers with timely and constructive feedback. One of the purposes of continuous assessment is to guide students to improvement. Providing fair and constructive feedback guides student teachers in addressing the areas in which they need to focus and indicates to them areas where they have been successful. This is why rubrics, scales and other criteria for grading are important in giving student teacher feedback. What is generally not helpful are negative comments such as 'this is pathetic!' meaningless marks such as check () marks throughout a composition, and general statements such as 'good work!'

The feedback should be timely. Waiting weeks or sometimes not receiving marks at all for work completed is frustrating and de-motivating for student teachers, yet there is a practice in some colleges of not marking student work, returning marked work back to students weeks or sometimes months after they have completed the assignment, and giving meaningless or even destructive feedback to student teachers. A study of teacher educators' practices in Zambia (CHANGES2, 2006, p.18), revealed that "students complained of assignments not being marked. When student work was marked, it often contained no constructive feedback, or came too late to have an impact student preparation for the next assignment."

Some Concluding Remarks

Continuous assessment may offer some support to LCE, particularly if it is not high stakes continuous assessment or continuous testing. There are many reasons for using continuous assessment in the college classroom. Some of them are described below. As you will see most of the reasons for implementing continuous assessment build strong support for the implementation of LCE.

The field of educational assessment is large and complex. This chapter barely skims the surface by presenting ways for college teachers to expand on their classroom assessment practices. As teachers and teacher educators, we have often neglected the area of classroom assessment because of constraints of time, workloads and large classes. The importance of assessment in the teaching learning process, however, is gaining a wider acknowledgement from educators and other stakeholders. It often appears that some of the work of assessment is highly technical and rule bound. What is perhaps more important to consider is the role creativity plays in developing and implementing good classroom assessment. You are encouraged to experiment with new assessment techniques and develop some on your own. It is also important that you explain and reflect on your assessment methods with your student teachers. This helps them to gain a deeper understanding of the assessment they will ultimately use in their own classrooms. Here are a few suggestions for trying new assessment techniques:

• Use professional judgment and intuition.
• Don't let it be a burden.
• Try the technique out on yourself first.
• Allow ample time for assessment and feedback.
• Provide feedback to students about it.
• Discuss it with your colleagues.

Seminars

Seminar 1. Aligning assessment with instruction

Introduction

Teacher-centered education is sometimes referred to as a transmission model of education, because teachers, through lecture, note-giving and classroom activities, focus on recall of information. While thinking skills may be important to teachers, in the teacher-centered mode, the emphasis remains on students' passive reception of pre-existing knowledge. Assessment that emphasizes recall of information, selection of one right answer and other short answers is in line with teacher-centered education and the transmission mode of teaching.

Learner-centered education, with the emphasis on students making meaning implies that assessment would have more open-ended questions, multiple correct answers and multiple ways of assessing what learners know, understand and can do. This is more in line with constructivism and knowledge creation. See Figure 7.1 (Shepard, 2000).

Reformed Vision of Curriculum

• All students can learn
• Challenging subject matter aimed at higher order thinking & problem solving
• Equal opportunity for diverse learners
• Socialization into the discourse & practices of academic disciplines
• Authenticity in the relationship between learning in and out of school
• Fostering of important dispositions and habits of mind
• Enactment of democratic practices in a caring community

Cognitive & Constructivist Learning Theories

• Intellectual abilities are socially and culturally developed
• Learners construct knowledge and understandings within a social context
• New learning is shaped by prior knowledge and cultural perspectives
• Intelligent thought involves "metacognition" or self monitoring of learning and thinking
• Deep understanding is principled and supports transfer
• Cognitive performance depends on dispositions and personal identity

Classroom Assessment

• Challenging tasks to elicit higher order thinking
• Addresses learning procedures as well as learning outcomes
• An on-going process, integrated with instruction
• Used formatively in support of student learning
• Expectations visible to students
• Students active in evaluating their own work
• Used to evaluate teaching as well as student learning

Specific Tasks

1. In a group of teacher educators, take a survey of the types of assessment used by each person in the group. Make a list of the types of assessments used and what they measure. Develop a set of criteria to determine if the assessments are more in line with LCE or transmission modes of teaching. What is the predominant type of assessment used in the college? What are the reasons for this? Explain.
2. Is there room for expanding the type of assessments used in college teaching? What would be the benefits of expanding classroom assessment practices? What would be the barriers?
3. Make a plan for improving assessment practices at the college.

Suggested Reading

Shepard, L. (2000). The Role of Assessment in a Learning Culture. Presidential Address Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. New Orleans, LA. USA.

Seminar 2. Robust understandings 1

Introduction

This seminar is focused on raising questions about what it means to develop robust and deep understanding of the subject matters. The question spontaneously pushes the participants to consider ideas about the assessment tools used to encourage the development of robust understanding.

Specific Tasks

1. Read the article by Shepard on Robust Understandings ahead of the seminar. What does Shepard mean by robust understandings? In Figure 7.2, there are different ways of assessing a learner's understanding of multiplication. In a group, discuss how these alternative ways of assessing indicate a learner's robust understanding of multiplication.
2. From different subject areas, develop multiple ways of assessing that show robust understanding on the same concept. Present your assessments to colleagues for review and critique.
3. Does assessing for robust understanding help student teachers pass exams? Explain.

A typical Multiple-Choice Question:

59 * 12 =

• a. 608
• b. 698
• c. 708
• d. 798

A question to Check for Understanding an Algorithm

In the following multiplication problem, what goes in the blank?

59 * 12 = blank

• a. 708
• b. 128

Observation and Interview

Draw as many diagrams as you can that represent the multiplication fact:

59 * 12 = 708

Explain to me what each means.

Having Students Apply the Multiplication Fact:

Write a word problem that would involve multiplying 59 * 12 to find its solution.

A Performance Task

(with blocks, beans, balance scales, tiles, graph paper, and other materials available)

You are going to teach a second grader what multiplication is all about.

Suggested Reading

Shepard, L. (1997). Measuring Achievement: What does it mean to test for robust understandings? Third annual William H. Angoff Memorial Lecture. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Seminar 3. Robust understanding 2

Introduction

Following the first seminar on robust understanding, this seminar provides the participants with a specific example of a mathematical task and invites them to reflect and comment on students' understanding.

Specific Tasks

A mathematics teacher had been teaching graphing for two weeks. The students had practiced with various types of data tables and graphs. For an assessment of students' understandings of graphs, the teacher gave the students the following graph with these instructions:

• Label the graph with a title.
• Label the vertical and horizontal axes.
• Add a key to the graph.

References

Appendices

Appendix A

The following example is a holistic rubric that teachers may use to tell learners about the progress in reading at the end of a term. When using a rubric such as the one in the table below, a teacher indicates a learner's overall level of performance. The learner can read where he or she is on the chart as a summary of the kinds of tasks the learner is able to perform. The learner is also aware of what he or she will need to work on to move up to the next level.

Appendix B

Here is an example of how a teacher educator uses an analytic rubric to assess Parts of Speech Picture Books made by student teachers. A picture book has a lot of elements and each element has a description of different levels of quality. If a student teacher gets a 4 on her picture book then she knows how the book was assessed in four areas - application of the parts of speech ideas in the book, use of categorization of words, creativity and industriousness and the level she reached in each area as defined by the text in each box. This is more instructive than giving a number without describing what that number means.