Chapter 3 Focus Questions
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May 8, 2024
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Chapter 3: Common Assessments: A Community of Assessors
1.
Explain, in your own words, what is meant by a common assessment and what their purpose is.
a.
Common assessments are the different formative and summative assessments used to assess multiple groups of students. They are used to help show that teachers are meeting the standards they are supposed to be teaching. These common assessments help teachers know what teaching styles are working or not as well as what material students may need more help understanding.
2.
Your book describes a common assessment cycle as have 8 steps. Identify each step and explain, in your own words, what happens in that step.
a.
Step 1: Identify the Power Standards:
There are so many standards but not always enough time to teach everything, so it is important for teachers to assess students on the more important content. Power standards are standards that are important throughout all grade levels as well as normal life. Teacher teams should identify the power standards for each grade and then a curriculum map should be created in order to show when each of these standards should be taught. It is also important to think about the questions that will be asked on the state standardized tests and what standards should be focuses on most to help students be prepared for them.
b.
Step 2: Repack the Standards: Standards are sometimes hard to understand so it is important for teachers to break them down to know where to start. To repack a standard, you should break it up into main categories and then identify the important subskills that fall into each of those categories. A checklist can alsp be used to keep track
of when each categorey/subskill is introduced to make sure the teachers are on track with the lesson.
c.
Step 3: Write Test-Bank Questions: It is important to test students throught the year in order to know what students are not understanding the material. Benchmark tests can be purchased by the district in order to prepare for state standardized tests but can also be created by the schools and distrcits themselves. It is important for teachers to develop their own questions because they can use the vocabulary used in the state tests
as well as the vocabulary from the school’s own curriculum. By writing their own questions, teachers are able to improve their own instruction as well as be able to better
prepare their students for the state tests.
d.
Step 4: Create Student Checklists and Rubrics: Checklists are ungraded instructional tools used to help students and teachers through the steps of assinments. The checklicks are used to monitor progess and helps the teacher see where each student is at so they can help when needed and make sure each student is able to complete the steps on their own or not. The specific language of the standard can be used in the checklist to show the specifc vocabulary used in the standard. Although these checklists are not graded, it can be helpful to have a grade at the end to show the teacher and the student what socre the student would acheieve if this was done as a summative assesment so they know what needs to be improved on.
e.
Step 5: Teach the Standard and Use Formative Assessments: This step is about using different strategies, such as giving students worksheets to complete or reviewing the textbook chapter, to teach the standards. It is important to use different types of
strategies in order to keep the students more engaged. After teaching, students must be
assessed in order to help the teacher know if the students understand the material or not so they can imporve their instruction.
f.
Step 6: Examine Student Work: By examining student work, teachers reflect with other teachers on what they learned about how their students learn and what goals they have
moving forward. Teachers work together to change the way in which they teacher as well as deciding how to differentiate instruction to meet these new goals. Collaborating with other teachers in this way is important because they can each give and receive feedback on how to better teach these students. You can learn things that other teachers noticed about certain students that you may have missed, such as how a child responds to certain assinemtns, or you can learn about different ways that will help you teach better overall.
g.
Step 7: Differentiate Insturction: When students don’t understand something you may need to differentiate, or change, the way you teach the lesson. One way to differentiate a lesson is by changing the complexity level from contrete, to symbolic, to abstract. At the concrete level the students works hands on, at the symbolic level the students can watch a video, and at the abstract level the studnets can read the test book. Another way to differentiate is by changing the resources. Instead of reading the history book, ou
can have students watch a film related to the topic. Students can also work in groups to work together to understand the key ideas. Differentiation can also be done by changing
the learning environment. This can be done on a field trip or by doing a community project. h.
Step 8: Administer Summative Assessment: A summative assessment is giving to make a final judgement at the end of the learning period. Prior formative assessments can be used as summative assessments because the standards and criteria are the same. Unlike
the formative assessment step, these are not used as feedback but are graded with letter grades and are pass/fail. These assemtns can help teachers see what they need to improve on next time they teach this lesson, although it will not help the curent student improve.
3.
Why do standards play such a critical role in the development of common assessments?
a.
Standards play a critical role in the development of common assessments because the common assessments are directly based on them. Teahcers identify what standards need to be taught, break the standards down to be easier to understand and teach, and use formative and summative assessments to see what the students have learned. 4.
Why should schools use benchmark, interim, or short-cycle formative common assessments throughout the year?
a.
Schools should use these types of assessments throughout the year because it will help the teacher know what material the students know and what material they don’t know. This way, the teacher knows what to focus on most so students can do well on the state standardized tests. If there is a topic that most students get wrong, a teach might take some time to focus on that so that the students can be well prepared for the next time they are asked that type of question.
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