In this process both standards-based instruction and assessment tasks are used to verify that each student has learned the basic skills, content knowledge, and thinking processes expected in the learning standards. In standards-based assessment tasks this means that each student must "do, perform, or construct" -- without the assistance of the teacher -- what was specified in the learning standards and was taught in the aligned standards-based instruction tasks with the help of a teacher.
This is the critical characteristic of standards-based assessment because a parallel performance is expected of each student during the checking process that was practiced during instruction. Hence, if the learning standard calls for problem solving, assessment must provide performance assessment tasks for each student to demonstrate that they have learned to problem solve. During instruction, students will practice problem solving in a number of contexts with the help of a variety of resources. During assessment, students are required to problem solve in a secure setting -- using only resources needed to complete the assessment task -- in order to determine the extent of learning achieved by each student.
The implication of this process for teachers involves developing ongoing or formative and end of unit or summative standards-based assessments that verify what each student has learned. Only through this approach will assessment mirror, match, or align with the learning standards and instruction. This type of assessment is used to ensure that enduring standards are learned. Moreover, constructed response assessments should be blended with selected response assessments to ensure that key knowledge, skills, concepts, and processes are known by each student as a precondition of their application by students to solve complex problems.
The TaskBuilder™ Figure 8 Strategy and TaskBuilderOnline™ help teachers to develop assessments and scoring tools to evaluate student performance. "Checking" includes collecting samples of student work for each score point on scoring tools to help students understand what is expected of them. |
