Assessment and Instruction: You Can’t Have One without the

Other!!!

Social Studies Coordinators andDepartment Chairs

Piedmont Baptist ChurchConference Center

February 3, 2011

EQ: How does assessment inform instruction?

• 8:00 – Refreshments• 8:30 – 10:30 Practical Tools for Assessing Students (Rhonda Lokey and

Laura Golz)

• 10:30 – 10:45 Break• 10:45 – 11:30 Breman Museum Traveling Trunks (Dr. Lili Baxter and

Mike Weinroth)

• 11:30 – 12:30 Lunch on Your Own• 12:30 – 1:00 High-Stakes Testing: How Are Social Studies Teachers

Responding?• 1:00- 2:30 Increasing Student Achievement with Depth of

Knowledge• 2:30 – 2:40 Break• 2:40 – 4:00 Assess Trax as a Meaningful Instructional Tool

Save the Last Word for Me

National School Reform Faculty: Developed by Patricia Averette

1. Create a group of 4 participants. Choose a timekeeper who has a watch.

2. Each participant silently reads the selected text and highlights the passage that he/she considers to be either the most significant idea or an idea that resonates with him/her.

3. When the group is ready, a volunteer member identifies the part of the article that he/she highlighted and reads it aloud to the group. This person (the presenter) says nothing about why that particular passage was chosen.

4. The group should pause for a moment to consider the passage before moving to the next step.

5. The other participants each have 1 minute to respond to the passage - - saying what it makes them think about, what questions it raises for them, etc.

6. The first participant (the presenter) then has 3 minutes to state why he/she chose that part of the article and to respond to – or build on – what his/her colleagues shared.

7. The same pattern is followed until all four members of the group have had a chance to be the presenter and to have “the last word”.

Depth of Knowledge and

Content Complexity Dr. Norman L. Webb, Wisconsin Center for Education

Research, 1997

Level 1 – RecallRecall of a fact, information, or procedure

Level 2 – Skill/ConceptUse information or conceptual knowledge, two or

more steps, etc. (Compare and Contrast, for example)

DOK Levels, continued

• Level 3 – Strategic ThinkingRequires reasoning, developing plan or a

sequence of steps, some complexity, more than one possible answer (analysis, draw conclusions)

• Level 4 – Extended ThinkingRequires an investigation, time to think

and process multiple conditions of the problem (SS Fair, History Day, Senior Project)

Content Complexity

Differentiates learning expectations by - considering the amount of prior knowledge

-processing of concepts and skills - sophistication - number of parts, and - application of content structure required to meet an expectation or to attain an outcome.

Bloom’s Taxonomy (1957)

• Knowledge – Recall of specifics and generalizations; of methods and processes; and of pattern, structure, or setting

• Comprehension – Knows what is being communicated and can use the material or idea

• Application – Make clear the relative hierarchy of ideas in a body of material or to make explicit the among the ideas

• Synthesis – Assemble parts into a whole• Evaluation – Judgments about the value of material and

methods used for particular purposes

The Cognitive Processing Dimension of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

• Remember• Understand• Apply• Analyze• Evaluate• Create

What is the difference in Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s DOK?

• Bloom’s taxonomy begins with the simplest behavior to the most complex. Bloom focuses on instruction.

• Webb’s DOK is a scale of cognitive demand. It refers to the complexity of the mental processing that must occur to answer a question, perform a task, or generate a product. DOK focuses on assessment.

DOK Levels• Level 1 – Recall

Recall of a fact, information, or procedure• Level 2 – Skill/Concept

Use information or conceptual knowledge, two or more steps

• Level 3 – Strategic ThinkingRequires reasoning, developing a plan, sequence

of steps, some complexity, more than one possible answer

• Level 4 – Extended ThinkingRequires an investigation, time to think and process multiple conditions of the problem

Questions for Thought: Different DOK Levels

• DOK 1:How can you find the meaning of ___?Can you recall ___?

• DOK 2:How would you classify the type of ___?What can you say about ___?

• DOK 3:What conclusions can be drawn from these three

texts?What is your interpretation of this text? Support

your rationale.

Which of these means about the same as the word gauge?

a. balanceb. measurec. selectd. warn

Gauge: calculate or evaluate something, ensure conformity to a standard.

Synonmyn = measure

• This is a level 1 or 2 question. It is a level 1 if the student only needs to know the definition in order to answer the question.

• This is a level 2 question if the student must look at information in context in order to answer the question.

What is the correct answer?

• 121 13

32 +34

1) 1902) 2003) 2904) N

Complexity vs. Difficulty

• The problem on the previous slide is NOT a complex problem, but it is a difficult problem due to the opportunities to make mistakes. Therefore, this is a level 1 problem.

DOK is not about difficulty, but rather about complexity.

• Difficulty is associated with how many students answer the question correctly.

What is the suffix in the word unsuccessful? (Most

students can answer this so it is considered “easy”.)What is the suffix in the word unimaginative? (If the

majority of students answer this question, it is considered to be “difficult”, however, it is NOT complex. The mental procedure for both is the same.

A person at a city political meeting is holding a sign that says: “Fair Taxes – Vote for Davis!!”

Based on the information from this sign, what type of government does this city have?

A. dictatorshipB. direct democracyC. absolute monarchyD. representative democracy

Why is the question on the previous slide a level 2 question?

Which of the following statements best describes the relationship between the general election years from 1996 to 2000 and oil and gas industry donations to Democrats?

A. Oil and gas industry donations to Democrats increased and then decreased.

B. Oil and gas industry donations to Democrats decreased and then increased.

C. Oil and gas industry donations to Democrats consistently increased.

D. Oil and gas industry donations to Democrats consistently decreased.

Why is this a DOK level 3 question?

Looking at Sample Test Items