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Alaska Department of Education & Early Development
Social Studies Framework

Chapter 5: Assessment

In the effort to provide better and increased information about accountability, curriculum monitoring, placement, and diagnosis in education, educators are transforming assessments from traditional paper and pencil tasks to more performance-oriented approaches.

Performance-based or authentic assessment tasks are those which engage students in real-world tasks rather than multiple-choice tests, and evaluate them according to criteria that are important for actual performance in a field of work. (Darling-Hammond, 1994)

For districts, the broad questions relating to assessment include the following.

• Is assessment an integral part of learning?
• Is assessment holistic, analytic, and integrative?
• Does assessment include public demonstration?
• Are students involved in setting personal assessment goals and selecting assessment activities?
• Does assessment provide formative as well as summative data?
• Does assessment involve the application of information to solve real-world problems?
• Are a wide variety of assessment strategies employed?
• Are analytic assessment strategies employed?
• Are teachers supported in their assessment efforts?

(Source: The Eric Review, Fall, 1994)

RANGE OF ASSESSMENTS

Comprehensive assessment programs contain all four of the major types of assessment noted in the table below. This chapter focuses primarily on alternative types of assessment rather than on tests and quizzes.

TYPES OF ASSESSMENTS

Student work, products, performances	Teacher/other observations that may turn into assessments
National, state, district, or teacher-made tests and quizzes	Student self-assessment

Source: Shalvey, 1994.

Several states are using extended response or open-ended questions in statewide assessment programs. Examples of their questions are included in the implementation kit. Such open-ended questions may be useful in the transition between traditional paper-and-pencil tests and performance assessments. Open-ended questions have several common features which teachers can use as guides when generating their own tests and quizzes.

The questions used in open ended assessments focus more on asking why and how rather than what, when, and where. Other characteristics of these questions are listed below.

• Open-ended questions tend to be broader, requiring integration of knowledge and/or skills from more than one curricular goal, objective, strand, or discipline.
• Open-ended questions tend to focus on higher-order thinking skills rather than on recall and acquisition of facts. They tend to require analysis, explanation, interpretation, evaluation, or comparison and contrast.
• Open-ended questions require students to write out their thoughts rather than choose the correct answer from among several choices.
• Most open-ended questions require responses that truly are open; i.e. several responses may be correct with the score determined by the quality of the response rather than by giving one "right" answer.

Source: North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

Assessments can range from the traditional paper and pencil tests, to performance assessments, to portfolios. (See the list on page 7 of this chapter.) The advantages of alternative assessments, those other than traditional paper and pencil tests, are numerous.

Advantages for Students

Advantages for Teachers

think more deeply feel free to do their best thinking because their ideas are valued ask deeper and more frequent questions of themselves, their classmates, and their teachers improve their listening skills and gain an appreciation for the role of listening in cooperative work feel responsibility for their thoughts and ownership of their methods observe that there are many right ways to complete a task experience the value of verbalization as a means of clarifying one's thinking form new insights into discipline concepts learn ways to identify the places where they need help increase their self-confidence and self-esteem as a result of genuine interest shown by a teacher or classmate feel more tolerance and respect for other people's ideas focus their energy on exploring and communicating ideas about big ideas rather than on finding right answers develop strategies for conducting self-interviews while working in other settings encourages higher order thinking so students are thinking beyond basic knowledge levels

gain access to student thinking enhance their ability to use nonthreatening questions that elicit explanations and reveal misconceptions strengthen their listening skills show respect for their students by being nonjudgmental use interview results as a source of questions to pose on written assignments for the whole class encourage respect for diversity by modeling appreciation of varied approaches pose questions that encourage students to construct and share their own understandings feel reinforcement for letting go of "teaching as telling"

Source: Stenmark, 1991.