Tips to Improve Assessment

1. Create an educational culture, based on a partnership of school, students, parents, and community, that insists upon multiple measures of what students know and are able to do before making placement decisions about students.
2. Provide staff development that covers the broad range of assessment strategies and provides examples in familiar contexts.
   • Provide opportunities for teachers to work together to develop and discuss a variety of assessments.
   • Expect teachers to rely on assessments to provide a clear picture of their students' prior knowledge before planning instruction.
   • Model effective assessment techniques in district activities.
3. Develop ways to help teachers embed their assessment record keeping into their instruction through strategies such as observation checklists.
4. Evaluate and improve the assessments being used in your district. Consider questions such as these:
   • Do the assessment strategies ask the students to apply basic skills, think critically, and solve problems? Do they involve 'real life' applications?
   • Are there varied methods to assess students' process, performance, and understanding of content?
   • How do district and state mandated assessments, such as the TerraNova, link to daily assessment practices?
   • What assessment accommodations can be made to ensure that all students have equal opportunity to demonstrate what they know and are able to do?
   (Source: Philadelphia School District Frameworks)
5. Balance the use of cognitive development processes with more traditional evaluation practices.
   • Make assessment be an integral part of teaching.
   • Develop problem situations that require applying of a number of mathematical ideas.
   • Use multiple assessment techniques, including written, oral and demonstration formats.
   • Reduce having assessment be simply counting correct answers on tests for the sole purpose of assigning grades.