Presentation for Oxford, CT November 2, 2010

1. How are we doing?
Assessment Design and
Technology
Justin Reich
EdTechTeacher.org
Harvard Graduate School of
Education

2. Objectives
• Explain the manifold purposes and possibilities of
assessment
• Examine the role of assessment in Backwards Design
• Design rubrics and incorporate them in ongoing
conversation with students
• Leverage technology to make student behavior visible
and to more easily collect and analyze assessment data
• Incorporate assessment data in ongoing conversations
about teaching and learning

3. Summative vs. Formative
Assessment
Summative
• Happens at the end
• Emphasis on evaluating
understanding
• Typically higher stakes
• Demonstrates
understanding of goals
• Drives unit and lesson
design
Formative
• Happens throughout
• Emphasis on fostering
understanding
• Typically lower stakes
• Evaluates intermediate
understandings
• Drives unit and lesson
adjustment in real time

4. Purposes of Assessment:
 assess student comprehension or mastery via performance of understanding
 benchmark progress
 assess teacher efficacy
 hold teachers, students, administrators, others accountable
 clarify expectations (for students, parents, teachers, colleagues…)
 motivate students to work/study/stick to requirements
 motivate teachers to work/study/stick to requirements
 teach new material in context of assessing student mastery of other
material/skills
 assign grades
 sort students (or teachers)
 compare students (or teachers) to an external norm or set of criteria
 conform with/adhere to external requirements (MCAS, etc.)
 demonstrate to students how much they’ve learned – give them something to
show off or celebrate
 help students become better at taking tests

5. Types of Assessment

6. Backwards Planning (UbD)
Select learning goals
What do you want students to be able to do by the end of the lesson or unit?
Design assessment tasks
How will students demonstrate their developing mastery of those goals?
Develop lesson activities
How will you prepare students to master the goals and
succeed on the assessment task?

7. Backwards Planning
Select learning goals
What do you want students to be able to do by the end of the lesson or unit?
Design assessment tasks
How will students demonstrate their developing mastery of those goals?
Develop lesson activities
How will you prepare students to master the goals and
succeed on the assessment task?
Intermediate
Goals/
Formative
Assessment

8. Good Learning Goals
If Goals  Assessments,
then they must be:
Clearly articulated
Observable/Measurable
Appropriate

9. Mini-Lesson: Characteristics of
Good Learning Goals
Clearly articulated
 students, parents, educators, and
general public can understand
them without additional
explanation
 focused and specific

10. Good Learning Goals
Clearly articulated
Observable/Measurable
– teacher can measure or assess student
mastery of the goal
– students and parents can assess student
mastery of the goal
– short-cut evaluation for cognitive learning
goals: uses a verb from Bloom’s Taxonomy

11. Good Learning Goals
Clearly articulated
Observable/Measurable
Appropriate
– goal meets students’ and/or society’s needs
 as defined by teacher, school, district, state, etc…
– goal is achievable given context
 timeframe, class size, students’ ages and backgrounds,
available resources, externally-imposed constraints
– goal is worthwhile
 aligned/consonant with teaching aims

12. Writing/Revising Cognitive
Learning Goals
Original Goal: Students will understand
causes of the U.S. Civil War.
Task: Revise this goal to be clearly
articulated, observable, and appropriate
Context: 7th
grade U.S. history course in
Oxford PS, untracked
If it helps, look at the Bloom action words!

13. Goals
• Students demonstrate their understanding
of the chronology of the origins of the civil
war by will arrange in chronological order
the 4 or 5 events that caused the civil war
in three class periods…

14. Discussion Questions
• First, discuss one idea or strategy from this
morning that you can implement in your own
instruction this year. What is one thing you may
do differently? Ask probing questions of your
colleagues to understand their ideas.
• Second, what ideas or strategies from this
morning could grades/departments/
teams/colleagues at GOMS implement
collaboratively to improve student learning.
Develop an action plan for one idea as a group.

15. Google Form Challenges
• Create a new form
• Give your form a title
• Add 2 questions of two different “types”
• Post your form link at todaysmeet.com/edtechteacher
• Answer two people’s quizzes
• Look at your data summary
• ADVANCED: create a summary of your data using
equations or graphs
• ADVANCED: develop a quiz/survey for your class

16. Rubistar Challenges
• Go to rubistar.4teachers.org
• Scroll down and choose a subject area
• Choose a specific project to create a rubric for
• Enter the basic title information
• Select a category
• Revised a benchmark in a prepopulated
category
• Create a new category
• Submit and Preview

17. Using Data to Address Instruction
Further Reading: Data Wise and Data Wise in Action

18. Backwards Planning (UbD)
Select learning goals
What do you want students to learn by the end of the lesson or unit?
Design assessment tasks
How will students demonstrate their developing mastery of those goals?
Develop lesson activities
How will you prepare students to master the goals and
succeed on the assessment task?

19. Things I showed at the end
• Typewith.me
• Meebo.com
• Blogger.com
• Wikispaces.com

20. Synchronous Discussion
Discussion Boards and Chat

21. Synchronous Discussion
• Conversation about Conversation
– Write down 5 thought questions to inspire
discussion about the effective use of
discussion in class
• Assign groups
– Elect a leader
– Discuss questions on forums
– Refresh often
– Use @Justin to respond to particular people if
unclear

22. • The leader from each group should invite the other members
into a chat. From this point forward: NO TALKING, ONLY
TYPING.
• Each person will then in turn ask one of their discussion
questions. You will be given 15 minutes to discuss. The goal is
to discuss questions as deeply and thoroughly as possible. I'd
rather read an in-depth examination of two questions than brief
discussions of six. GO DEEP!
• You will get a 5 point grade for this exercise. While I will raise
the standards later, for now the grade will be mostly based on
the following:
• 1) Do you stay on topic?
• 2) Do you carefully read and respond to each other?
• 3) Do you ensure that you finish each question before moving
on?
• In the future, I will also expect you to actively challenge one
another and to incorporate evidence from the source material.
• When you are finished, the leader should copy and paste the
chat into an email and send it to turninreich.

23. • Pablo Toribio-09[10:11:31 AM]: Why is Arjuna is reluctant to fight?
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:11:54 AM]: because he doesn't want to kill all of those
people
• Pablo Toribio-09[10:11:55 AM]: Arjuna is reluctant to fight because he believes those
people are his family.
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:12:02 AM]: and his teachers
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:12:07 AM]: yeah
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:12:09 AM]: and his great uncles
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:12:22 AM]: his family, he didnt want to kill them
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:12:29 AM]: right
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:12:39 AM]: he felt like he was close to these people
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:13:12 AM]: yeah, and he thought it would be cruel and
unnecesary to kill them
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:13:17 AM]: yeah
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:13:28 AM]: +, he says he doesnt want a kingdom
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:13:30 AM]: right
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:13:32 AM]: he became overcome with grief
• Pablo Toribio-09[10:14:04 AM]: "Then Arjuna saw in both armies fathers,
grandfathers, sons, grandsons; father of wives, uncles, masters;brothers
companions, and friends. When Arjuna thus saw his kinsmen face to face i
both lines of the battle, he was overcome by grief and despair and thus he
spoke with a sinking heart. "
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:14:20 AM]: right
• Vinesha Collymore-09[10:14:44 AM]: so that's our conclusion for number 1
• Jess Lippincott-09[10:14:49 AM]: then "I have no wish for victory Krishna,
nor for a kingdom, nor for its pleasures"

24. Asynchronous Discussion
Blogs and Discussion Boards

25. New Ways to
Develop
Fundamental Skills
Rehearse for 21st
Century Situations/
Environments
Improve Student
Engagement
Hypothesized Benefits to
teaching with Web 2.0

26. Enable Rich
Collaboration
Enable Rich
Collaboration
Motivate
Students
Motivate
Students
Improve
Writing
Skills
Improve
Writing
Skills
Engage
in New
Civic
Dialogue
Train for
Web 2.0
Applications
in Business
Engage in
New Global
Dialogue
Learn
New
Media
Literacies
Learn
New
Media
Literacies
Practice
Deeper and
Richer
Discussion
Practice
Deeper and
Richer
Discussion
Train for
Writing
under Real
World
Conditions
New Ways to
Develop
Fundamental Skills
Rehearse for 21st
Century Situations/
Environments
Include More
Students
Include More
Students
Improve Student
Engagement
Hypothesized Benefits to
teaching with Web 2.0

27. Some Exemplar Blogs
• Professor Cooper's Fundamentals of Writing Blog
• Comparative Religions
• The Secret Life of Bees
• Middle East Studies
• Daisy
• Nobles goes to Tanzania
• Chris’s American Literature 11
• Stephanie (U.S. History)
• Extreme Biology
• Sargent Park Math Zone
• HHC Collaboration Blog

28. Blog Challenges:
• Create a Blog
• Add a post
– Use formatted text
– Include a link
– Include an image
– Publish the post
• Add a post
– Save as a draft
• Go to Justin’s blog
– Add a comment to the
new post (how could
you use a blog in your
class)
– Reply *directly* to
someone else’s
comment