Assessment+Discussion

Summary of Discussion:
We talked about what makes a good assessment and what responsibility teachers have both to do what they think is best practice and to recognize the experience students are coming from and going to in terms of assessment.

How much should a major assessment, exam, be worth?

In some disciplines most summative tests are cumulative. How to help students understand that this is not "unfair". We discussed how we might prioritize topics that need to be reviewed and part of all assessments. What must students take away from a particular course.

Another idea that we talked about was timing. Does it matter at what point in the year a student masters something? Does it impact what grade they should receive? If they have showed mastery, do they need to show it again? Is it really mastered (if it is one of those critical, you must remember this skills) if the student later is not able to do/show/use the skill?

Scoring multiple attempts came up as well. How to assign points for this.

A key idea that we came around to over and over was transparency--the importance of students knowing what they need to learn, being able to prioritize skills and concepts, helping kids learn how to figure out what is most important.

The importance of process standards was also mentioned. Are we designing assessments that evaluate a process?

What about choice of problems on an assessment, even in math? How many problems correct for a particular skill=mastery?

If we are talking about lower stakes work, what is the value having some of this work be more public? Can peer examples and a wider audience produce better quality work and offer some motivation?

In peer reviewing, we talked about having the student whose work will be reviewed provide the reviewer with a list of things he or she was trying to do or work on. Then the review may only comment on the student's work in those areas. Provides focus and direction, involves both students in the process.