forCentral Memorial High School

UDL ProjectMarch 7, 2006

Ron WindrimInnovative Learning Services

Assessment in the Context of Universal Design for

Learning:Opportunities for Students

to Provide Evidence of Learning

Assessing Curricular Understanding

GOALS FOR TODAY

1. to distinguish between assessment and evaluation

2. To consider Some ideas and strategies about assessment (only some!)

3. to understand how using principles of universal design for learning influences how we assess student progress

4. to explore the d2l course – e-valuator to gain further understanding of assessment in a digital world.

distinguishing between assessment and evaluation

ASSESSMENT

• Gathering information about student learning that informs our teaching and helps students to learn more

• Used when students are acquiring new skills and knowledge; when they need a chance to practice; when they require feedback that enable them to adjust what they are doing in order to get better

EVALUATION

• Deciding whether or not students have learned what they needed to learn and how well they have learned it

• Tells the learner how she or he has performed compared to others or to some standard

Anne Davis (2000) Making Classroom Assessment Work

Understanding assessment …

• Students are involved in planning and assessing their own learning.

• Assessment is an integral part of planning for instruction (that reflects the Alberta Program of Studies).

• Assessment practices promote student and teacher self-reflection.

• Parents know and understand classroom assessment and communication practices that support learning.

From ALBERTA ASSESSMENT CONSORTIUM

distinguishing between assessment and evaluation

TALKING WITH STUDENTS ABOUT LEARNING:- How would we define learning?- What does learning look like?- Why is what we are learning relevant?- How do we know when we have learned?- What counts as learning?- What does learning look like in the 21st

century?

distinguishing between assessment and evaluation

Connecting prior knowledge and skills with new knowledge and skills; what we already know and can do with what we need to know and to be able to do.

Formative assessments – ongoing assessments designed to make students’ thinking visible to both teachers and students – are essential. They permit the teacher to grasp the students’ preconceptions, understand where the students are in the “developmental corridor” from informal to formal thinking, and design instruction accordingly. In the assessment-centered classroom environment, formative assessment help both teachers and students monitor progress.

From How People Learn: brain, mind, experience and school

distinguishing between assessment and evaluation

When the learning is captured in print, digitally, as audio, electronically, it becomes evidence that can be used later for conferencing and to report to others

distinguishing between assessment and evaluation

LMS, CMS, Digital portfolios and blogs as tools of assessment

Assessment in the context of universal design for learning

“Giving the same written test to all students is neither fair nor accurate. When a single, inflexible medium is used for testing, students' skills with that medium become hopelessly confused with the skills we intend to measure.”

“Testing separately from teaching and without the supports that students normally use provides an invalid perspective on what students know and can do.”

SOME ASSUMPTIONS

Digital tools and media make it possible to design ongoing assessments that support individual differences in

• Recognition learning, (how information is received by students)

• Strategic learning (how students demonstrate and represent their learning)

• affective learning ( how students engage with their learning)

a more accurate measure of students' achievement in relation to the learning goal in therefore possible

Digital curricula with embedded assessment can track progress and provide ongoing feedback to help students improve performance while they are learning

Assessment in the context of universal design for learning

SOME more ASSUMPTIONS

Individual differences in content recognition – reading issues, ESL, physical challenges, attention issues …The natural variety of recognition strengths and weaknesses within a typical classroom prevents any single presentational medium form yielding an unbiased, accurate assessment for the entire class.

Barriers to accurate assessment

INDIVIDUAL LEARNING DIFFERENCES

Individual differences in ‘strategic’ expression – student’s variable abilities to plan, execute and monitor actions and skills may influence performance in ways that are often unrelated to the skills and knowledge we are trying to assess. Single, standard modes of expression are not fair to all students

Individual differences in engagement – dangers in high-stakes testing; test formats – may result in making poor decisions based upon the results (we re-teach or change instructional methods when it was our test design that was at fault)

Barriers to accurate assessment

The reliance on singular media prevents teachers from fully evaluating different kinds of knowing.

MEDIA CONSTRAINTS

Understood as the interaction between the type of skill or knowledge being measured and the medium in which it is being assessed.

Just as students have varying capacities for using different media, media have different capacities for representing different kinds of ideas. How do we understand the appropriateness of the media for the task?

http://edutopia.org

Barriers to accurate assessment

When the supports do not undermine the central goal of the assessment, it is perfectly reasonable and, in fact more accurate to include them.

Huge issue here with our thoughts about cheating. If kids use ‘supports’ they are cheating (calculators, word processors, online dictionaries and thesaurus

LACK OF APPROPRIATE SUPPORTS

Often, traditional assessments are detached from instruction and practice - we test after the unit is ‘taught’ and the tests often have little to do with the learning process and the value of different teaching approaches

They avoid the multiple, flexible, ongoing assessments more like those used by doctors. – think of portfolios and journals as part of on-going assessment

Barriers to accurate assessment

LACK OF INTEGRATION WITH CURRICULUM

Assessing Curricular Understanding

“…the assessment of understanding should be thought of in terms of a collection of evidence over time”

(Wiggins & McTighe, 1998)

Ongoing assessment allows us to measure not only a students performance at one point in time, but also the evolution of that learning and the contributing factors.

Assessing Curricular Understanding through udl

Flexibility in presentation

- Providing multiple representations of content in the context of assessment

- Text-to-speech;

- links to important background information;

- vocabulary supports (linked glossaries);

- graphic organizers and concept maps;

- diagrams;

- Using “dynamic assessment” – which representations ‘work’? Which do not?

For example - http://www.cape.k12.mo.us/blanchard/hicks/Teacher%20Pages/Inspiration.htm

Assessing Curricular Understanding through udl

Flexibility in expression and supportsProviding student with multiple means for expressing what they know

- writing

- speaking

- drawing

- creating animation

- video

- multimedia presentations

When students are using tools that are familiar and appropriate for their own styles, needs and are preferences, they are not hindered by the medium or\f expression and are more likely to be able to demonstrate what they know and know how to do.

LEARNING IN THE MEDIUM(S) OF THEIR GENERATION

Assessing Curricular Understanding through udl

Embedding assessment into ongoing work removes some of the emotional impact of testing and highlights its more positive aspects. For students who fear academic assessment, freestanding tests loom as an obstacle, a hurdle, a "failure detector." But when assessment is removed from its isolated stature and made a normal, constant part of learning, the feedback for both student and teacher is informative and helpful rather than intimidating.

Flexibility in engagement

In a digital environment, embedded assessment can offer additional flexibility to further accommodate students' affect.

Flexibility in engagement

Assessing Curricular Understanding through udl

Second, teachers' ability to level and scaffold embedded assessments can ensure that every student is working at a comfortable and appropriate stage of difficulty. .

A third way to increase student engagement with assessment is to vary the content within a particular assessment tool. Standardized tests rarely do this. A test of reading comprehension, for example, is likely to present the same set of text passages for everyone, not taking into account whether each student will find the passages interesting or worth reading

First, most students find the options available within a multimedia environment—images, sounds, animations, and simulation—fun and appealing.

Using rubrics in assessment

• Why use rubrics in evaluation?– A rubric is a scale used to evaluate a students

demonstration and performance of certain skills and knowledge. Using a rubric offers a consistent method in grading.

– Can be built with students • What is a rubric?

– a checklist of characteristics that facilitates assessment of  a student's ability to meet the learning objectives.

– a set of assessment criteria that specifies the required characteristics for each level of quality, usually identified by a letter or number grade

• Example – English 30-1• See Regina Public Schools Rubrics

• Feeding back information to learners to improve learning• Learner self-assessment to improve learning

What am I expected to learn?

Where am I in my learning?

What do I need to do to get there?

assessment is at the heart of effective teaching and cannot be separated from instruction

Provide Assessment before Evaluation

Formative Assessment

Dropbox tool in D2L

Provide Meaningful Feedback