Two articles in ONE blog!

Butler & Stevens AND
O'Malley & Pierce on the topic of
Content Area Assessment

These readings presented issues that I deal with on a daily basis. How do we fairly test our LEP students (over 80% of the district) on content when they can't proficiently understand the language it is presented in? In the Butler article they talked about how in the past they would just exclude LEP students from national assessments---if we did that in our district we'd only have about 20 students doing the content area tests. Now, of course, that idea has been thrown out, and there are some other "solutions" such as:

-translating tests to the native language (although this can be quite difficult, to accurately translate the meaning of the test)
-offering test accomodations--like reading testing items, clarifying test questions
-modifications of the test

Although these things may help with testing, it still doesn't necessarily allow LEP students to demonstrate the actual content knowledge they possess. In topics that are not reading, such as math, and science students may have a very difficult time with the language used because often teachers of content areas probably don't spend enough time developing students language skills in that content area. LEP students need to have language objectives integrated with their content area objectives in order for them to be able to better learn and communicate about the content. Math for example has a whole vocabulary of it's own. No matter how good a student's computation skills are, if they can't understand math vocabulary and language they will probably not do well on a standardized math test. Standardized tests do not allow a student to fully show or demonstrate what they can do. The O'Malley chapter suggests that teachers should allow students to do authentic assessments to demonstrate content area knowledge. Students need scaffolding to build their content area knowledge...such as pre-teaching vocab and language that go along with a topic. This is true for any content that a student is learning.

The chapters point out that students that do not have language objectives integrated with their content objectives do not perform well on the tests. Basically, if teachers are not meeting these needs they are setting the students up to fail. It is important that ALL teacher in the school understand the language learning needs of LEP students, not just the Language teachers! I think these chapters would be particularly enlightening for some of the math, science and social studies teachers in my district.

Peregoy & Boyle Chapter 10 Reading Assessment

Peregoy & Boyle Reading and Assessment Chapter 10

I enjoyed reading this chapter. It seemed especially relevant to me at this time since I’ve been spending a lot of time going over reading assessments with my colleagues at the district office. Currently, our students are inundated with a lot of formal assessments. To progress a reading level they must pass an “end of level” assessment that includes a skills test, and a reading inventory. 4 times a year our students take the STAR reading assessment on the computer which determines a grade equivalent reading level. Certain grades of students have to take the Terranova standardized test for reading, which is a timed assessment that includes reading comprehension skills. All 3-10 grade students also have to take the Standards-Based Assessment in Reading. High School Students have to take another standardized test--the HSGQE--in reading, to determine whether they will graduate or not. That’s a lot of reading assessments! Especially when you consider these are all formal assessments that come from outside the classroom. Unfortunately, these tests don’t always accurately represent what a student can do, especially LEP students who may have trouble with a standardized test. Once a year the students are given the IPT test, which determines English Language proficiency, and tests students on reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Interestingly enough, our students do relatively well on the listening portion of the test compared to all the others. 3 times as many students are proficient or make progress in Listening as compared to the other skills. Which was a big aha to me---seems like we should be tapping into these students auditory skills!

This chapter was a good reminder that a lot of the informal reading assessments teachers do in classrooms are very valuable. It is also important for teachers to have a system set up to keep track of their classroom assessments so they understand their learners and their individual needs. The chapter also talks about good reading instruction practices---I was happy to hear that a lot of the mentioned practices are ones that I use or have used in the classroom. I have always felt strongly about giving students some time to do independent reading with books of their choice. I know that independent reading can and should be done at home, but as a teacher I don’t have any way of ensuring that happens, and especially where I live it often doesn’t happen in the home. Giving students the opportunity to read and choose books can foster a love of reading which can be motivation enough for students to improve their skills. No matter how many times I read about reading instruction and assessment it seems that I pick up something new, or at least am reminded of something I had forgotten.
I also enjoyed reading more about guided reading instruction, and “mini-lessons,” both are methods that I utilize in class.

A one-handed blog about Writing Assessment

Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners Chapter 6: Writing Assessment


Since my class is an advanced placement writing class, I deal with writing assessment more than anything. I can't say that I had a lot of aha's reading the chapter, but I did feel that it was congruent to what I've been taught previously, and very similar to the way I teach and assess writing.

No matter what level writers I have, I always spend time teaching and re-teaching the writing process. I teach my students how scoring rubrics are used, and we use them over and over in different situations. I feel the students must see some exemplars before they are expected to know what proficient writing "looks like." I like doing writing as mini-lessons or workshops. I agree with the chapter that feedback is very important. Also teaching students how to give each other feedback is helpful for improving their own writing skills. Peer feedback/peer conferences seem to really help students with writing.

I love the idea of dialogue journals. I often have this type of "dialogue" with students over e-mail or otherwise, but this would keep the ongoing dialogue in one place, and the student would have a chance to see growth in their writing ability. This is something I'd like to implement next quarter.

Hear you all in class tomorrow!

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Portfolios

I found this chapter interesting and helpful. I am going to keep my response short & sweet, as my right hand is tired of doing all the work today :)

I have used showcase & collection portfolios in the past---good, but same issues the chapter mentions

"aha" --- I should be moving towards an assessment portfolio that links curriculum/instruction to assessment, and allows students to have input in the criteria. also should involve more student self-assessment

also, i am starting to get some great ideas of how I might use portfolios (newsletter writing samples) and now I need to figure out how to best use student self-assessment, and student selected criteria. I feel like a lot of the examples were geared towards younger students.

in a way i have been using portfolios, but not in a systematic way...i like the ideas for contents page, and page for notes for others (parents, next teachers etc)....i would love to take these ideas and turn it into an electronic portfolio with my class.

i will be getting a new cast tomorrow during class, so think of me!! the best way to reach me this week is via e-mail.

take care, and i hope to talk to you all soon!

Em

The Language Assessment Process: A Multiplism Perspective

According to the author of this article there is a process that must take place for all language assessments. Here are the steps:
1. Determine the purpose of the assessment
2. Define language knowledge to be assessed
3. Selecting the assessment procedure
4. Designing items and tasks
5. Administering the assessment tool(s)
6. Determining the quality of the language sample/answers produced
7. Assessing the quality of the procedures
8. Interpreting the results
9. Reporting the results

To me this list should help a teacher who is struggling with formalizing the process of giving authentic assessments.

When I read the title of the article my first thought was 1) Is Multiplism a word? and 2) What does it mean. The author goes on to say that deciding which assessment tool to use depends on the purpose of the assessment and on how language knowledge is defined. She suggests that the use of a "multiplism" approach to language assessment, whereby multiple options are available at each phase of the assessment process.

The article discusses some of the same things as the test design chapter from the McNamara book---such as discrete point testing, and how the purpose of these assessments measure skills based type of language acquisition, rather than communicative competence. The types of assessments that the author recommends are the same as the authentic assessments we have been reading about.

The phases of assessment that I was particularly interested in learning about were the ones that had to do with what you do after you administer the assessment. Such as the multiple ways you can interpret and report results. I think having an assessment conference is a great idea. I also like the idea of reporting in the form of a narrative, rather than just giving scores or grades etc.

Basically, what I got from reading this article, is that there are some basic processes that should be done when giving assessments, but there are multiple ways of doing these phases that can and should be done depending on the purpose of your assessment.

Designing Authentic Assessment

Approaches to teaching and learning have changed in light of new views on how students learn. Where in the past we thought learning was linear, we now see that learning doesn't necessarily proceed by the accumulation of a common set of basic skills, but can follow multiple strategies and pathways. The view of constructivism believes that all individuals are thought to learn by constructing information about the world and by using active and dynamic mental processes. This newer view on how we learn has implications for how we must assess. Basically, as the author states: "If students construct information as they learn, and apply the information in classroom settings, assessment should provide the students with opportunities to construct responses and to apply their learning to problems that mirror their classroom activities in authentic ways."

The article discusses briefly several types of authentic assessments. It also mentions that many teachers DO use these assessments already, however they do it in such an informal way that it does not provide enough information about student learning, or the goals of instruction.

Here are the list of the authentic assessments the book provides, and a note on whether or not I've used them..

Oral interviews--I've used these, but informally

Story or Text Retelling--Yes I've used this, and developed a rubric (or used rubrics created professionally)

Writing Samples--Yes often, Use 6-traits rubric, and rubrics that align to state writing standards

Projects/Exhibitions--Yes, often develop my own scoring rubrics for these

Experimental/demonstrations--Haven't used

Constructed Response Items--Yes, I do use these for tests for my high schoolers on material that I teach in class

Teacher Observations--YEs, but informally (until I start my research!!)

Portfolios--No, but REALLY want to!! I had a portfolio in high school, and remember thinking it was a fair assessment of my varied skills and talents


If I had to assess myself on my awareness of authentic assessments (which I will do in more detail on the self assessment) I would say that I'm fairly aware of them, and I do use them, however I need to implement a more formal/systematic approach so that I can get more meaningful information from them, as well as use them more in instructional goal setting.

I like how the chapter gives step by step directions for designing authentic assessments--I'm kind of excited to try and work with some teachers (if they can accept me as a teacher, and not a district office spy..lol) and design some authentic assessments particularly for our students' writing. We used to have a writing portfolio as part of our "old" standards and I would love to see that put back in place with some careful designing by LA teachers.