Assessing Student Learning
In the current national debates about educational testing, we often lose sight of one of the basic points of student assessment: finding out what students understand so that we can improve our ability to teach them. Good teachers use assessment to inform their teaching, to make judgments about curriculum, and to guide their work with individual students.
Mark Driscoll of EDC's Center for Leadership and Learning Communities (CLLC) identifies three key purposes of assessment, which mirror EDC's approach:
- Evaluating what students do and do not know and how they learn
- Selecting and inventing curriculum and instructional strategies that are more finely tuned to meet student needs
- Probing what content should be valued—discerning, for example, what is “worthwhile mathematics”
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TOUR EDC'S ONLINE
RESOURCES
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Using “Classroom Artifacts” |
Classroom artifacts—including student work, videotapes, and transcripts drawn from the classroom—are the focus of EDC’s Turning to the Evidence project. The four-year research study is designed to understand the value of classroom artifacts and the most effective ways to use them in teacher professional development programs.
Read an article about Turning to the Evidence from Mosaic: An EDC Report Series. 
Read an article about classroom artifacts.
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Online Resource |
The Accessing Student Achievement Project (ASAP) focuses on building the capacity of educators to use research-based assessment strategies to improve classroom instruction and student achievement. ASAP's Web site provides resources, tools, and other professional development opportunities that will help teachers and administrators explore assessment practices and accountability issues.
Visit the Accessing Student Achievement Project (ASAP) Web site. |
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Gaps in Assessment |
Formed by the Commissioners of Education in Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont and facilitated by EDC, The New England Compact provides a forum for states to address issues arising from the federal No Child Left Behind legislation.
The Compact’s Task Module Assessment System (TMAS) project addresses gaps in the current state assessment system and explores the following questions: Where are the gaps in the assessment system? Who are the students affected by these gaps? What are the appropriate assessment systems for students in the gaps? After answering these questions, the project will develop and pilot an assessment prototype to address the problems and meet student needs.
Visit The New England Compact Web site. |
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Linking Data with Learning |
EDC's Center for Children and Technology (CCT) recently conducted a two-year independent research study of the implementation of the Grow Report in the New York City school system. The Grow Report is a Web-based test reporting system designed by the Grow Network to help teachers and principals gather, make sense of, and use assessment data to support meaningful standards-based teaching and learning.
Learn more about and download a copy of the study (PDF, requires Adobe Acrobat). |
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Mathematics and
Special Education |
Addressing Accessibility in Mathematics is designing a professional development model and materials that will enable teachers to successfully support students with disabilities in regular mathematics classrooms. The model includes workshops, example lesson adaptations, and school-based planning groups.
Visit the Addressing Accessibility in Mathematics Web site. |
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Science Assessment |
Evidence of Understanding, recognized by the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse as a top online resource, allows educators to view examples of various assessment tools from a variety of instructional materials. The guide is broken down into five categories (Observations, Interviews, & Discussions; Written Assessments; Performance Assessment; Graphics; Self-Assessments) distributed equally among the earth, physical, and life sciences.
Visit the Evidence of Understanding Web site. |
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Assessments in Mathematics |
Assessing Students' Mathematics Learning explores issues related to both high-stakes and in-classroom assessments in mathematics. Intended for use by schools and teachers, the paper clarifies common terminology and uses of test scores, and helps guide readers to think about ways of evaluating assessments.
Download a copy of this paper (PDF, requires Adobe Acrobat). |
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