Assessment Types & Scoring Tools By Peggy Marcy a professor at Cal State San
Bernardino.
The first video in this series talked about assessment basics.
This one will look at a handful of basic assessment types, which most of them are just scoring
tools that can be applied in numerous settings.
By the way, I am specifically referring to classroom assessments, not placement or assessment
tests.
The most common classroom scoring tool is the quiz or test.
As a new teacher, I would get the test templates that the publisher provides for your textbook
and use that.
I used to have students write short quizzes for their classmates, but the questions and
possible answers were terrible the majority of the time.
The distractors, or wrong choices, need to sound as if they might be right.
If they don't, then the student can pass the test even if they don't really know the information.
I'm not saying make the choices tricky.
Just make the distractors related in some way, but still have the answer be clear.
Research shows students learn more from true-false questions that are false, by the way.
Also, you need to ask questions about big picture items, especially if they aren't allowed
any resources.
Part of our goal is to get students to focus on the main ideas, so asking about a detail
that was only mentioned in passing is unlikely to be helpful.
You can ask about details that you covered in class.
Another common type of scoring tool is a rubric.
If you search the web for rubric makers, you can find lots of help.
Essentially, rubrics try to make the assessment more objective.
Since they break the task or subject down into various skills and knowledge, students
will know exactly what they will be evaluated on.
In addition to the various skill areas, rubrics also indicate the quality associated with
that skill.
There are a lot of different formats or looks for rubrics.
You might find it beneficial to experiment with a variety of types.
One word of warning is to not include too much on your rubric.
If the project or task has multiple steps, you will be better off scoring multiple short
rubrics for each stage than one long one at the end.
A less commonly used scoring tool is a checklist.
This sometimes looks like a rubric because it breaks the task down into skills or knowledge
points.
But it really is a fixed format because either the student gets a checklist next to that
item or they don't.
Each item on the checklist can be worth the same amount of points, or you can show the
different points next to the item.
Let me end this video by mentioning portfolios.
Portfolios are considered a type of assessment.
They are scored by rubrics or by a pass/fail or by just giving it an overall percentage
point, like saying it gets an 80%, or by giving a letter grade.
Actually, when I kept portfolios, I just used them for self-assessment and never scored
them.
A portfolio is a place where student work is collected throughout the course of the
class.
Teachers can use it for midterm and final reviews to solicit the student's opinion about
the improvement or lack of improvement over time as well as give their own feedback.
The biggest value of the portfolio is that second language students have great difficulty
seeing improvement in their fluency and abilities.
So, keeping writing, oral recordings, and other items throughout the semester allows
for an objective evaluation of the amount of progress.
My experience is that most students are surprised and encouraged when they review their portfolios.
By the way, if you keep all the student work in a portfolio, it will be more difficult
for the learner to focus on the important pieces that show growth, so it is best for
the teacher to specify what type of work will be kept -- it doesn't all have to be final
drafts, while at the same time allowing students to add a few items that they feel proud of.
In summary, we looked at several types of assessments, most of which are really used
as scoring tools.
We said that tests should cover big ideas and the distractors should require true knowledge
to know the difference.
Rubrics provide a way for objectively indicating quality of skill or knowledge for each area
being evaluated.
Checklists break into skills, but they either get the points or they don't.
And, portfolios allow learners to evaluate their progress over time.