MAKING ASSESSMENT WORK for EVERYONE How to Build on Student Strengths
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MAKING ASSESSMENT WORK FOR EVERYONE How to Build on Student Strengths Patricia Kusimo Appalachia Regional Educational Laboratory Melissa G. Ritter Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory Kathleen Busick Pacific Resources for Education and Learning Chris Ferguson Southwest Educational Development Laboratory Elise Trumbull WestEd Guillermo Solano-Flores Assessment Laboratory Network Project of the Regional Educational Laboratories Regional Educational Laboratories Appalachia Regional The LAB at Brown (LAB) Educational Laboratory Providence, Rhode Island Charleston, West Virginia Laboratory for Mid-continent Research for Student Success (LSS) Education and Learning (McREL) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Aurora, Colorado North Central Regional Northwest Regional Educational Educational Laboratory (NCREL) Laboratory (NWREL) Oak Brook, Illinois Portland, Oregon Pacific Resources for Education The Regional Educational and Learning (PREL) Laboratory at SERVE Honolulu, Hawaii Greensboro, North Carolina Southwest Educational WestEd Development Laboratory (SEDL) San Francisco, California Austin, Texas This publication was funded wholly or in part by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, under contract number RJ96006901. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of any individual laboratory, the Department of Education, or any other agency of the U.S. government. Library of Congress Card Number: 00-106573 © Copyright, WestEd, 2000. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to educators to copy portions for use in local professional development activities. Every effort has been made to contact and credit all copyright holders. To order additional copies of Making Assessment Work for Everyone please contact: WestEd — Publications Center 730 Harrison Street San Francisco, CA 94107-1242 email: [email protected] phone: (415) 615-3144, fax: (415) 512-2024. Table of Contents The Assessment Laboratory Network Project (LNP) of the Regional Educational Laboratories ...............................................iv Acknowledgments ..................................................................................vi Introduction .......................................................................................... 1 Section I: Seeing Our Students’ Cultures with “New Eyes” ............. 11 Section II: Recognizing All Students’ Language Abilities .................. 45 Section III: Defining Good Assessment ............................................. 77 Section IV: Using Students’ Cultural and Linguistic Strengths to Build Good Assessments .......................................... 113 Section V: Repairing and Improving Externally Developed Assessments ............................................... 133 Section VI: Readings to Deepen Our Learning ................................ 151 Section VII: Professional Development Activities for Teachers.......... 201 Section VIII: Resources and More Information ................................. 259 The Assessment Laboratory Network Project (LNP) of the Regional Educational Laboratories The REL Assessment LNP is dedicated to improving student learning on a national scale by providing access to resources, technical assistance, and professional development in the area of classroom assessment. Making Assessment Work for Everyone results from a collaborative effort of seven of the regional educational laboratories that make up the Language, Culture, and Diversity work strand of the REL Assessment LNP. In some cases, core Assessment LNP staff contributed to the development of this publication; in other cases, REL staff with particular expertise in language, culture, and diversity issues in assessment contributed their efforts to this publication. Other products and publications developed by the REL Assessment LNP include: • Improving Classroom Assessment: A Toolkit for Professional Developers, Toolkit98 — 1,200+ power-packed pages including text, 37 training activities with instructions, teacher-friendly readings about classroom assessment issues, and sample assessments representing a variety of design options to be used to promote discussion. • The Assessment LNP Web site at www.wested.org/acwt/ which houses information about existing and upcoming Assessment LNP products and events. • The Promising Practices in Assessment Database (PPAD) accessible through the Assessment LNP Web site — a searchable, online database containing a variety of high quality, assessment-focused materials developed by the 10 regional educational laboratories. New products in process include a training module to help teachers and districts to better use assessment data to enhance classroom practice and a database/Web site of assessment software packages. PAGE IV MAKING ASSESSMENT WORK FOR EVERYONE For further information about any of these products or services, please contact your Assessment LNP core work group representative. Jane Hange The LAB at LSS — Temple University AEL Brown University 9th Floor, Ritter Annex P.O. Box 1348 Charleston, 222 Richmond Street (004-00) WV 25301 [email protected] Suite 300 Philadelphia, PA 19122 (304) 347-0476 Providence, RI [email protected] (800) 624-9120 02903-4226 Eileen_ (215) 204-3006 (304) 347-0486 (fax) [email protected] (401) (215) 204-5130 (fax) 274-9548 Ext. 228 (401) Eileen F. Ferrance 421-7650 (fax) Arlene Mitchell Jeong-Ran Kim McREL 1900 Spring Road, Melissa Ritter 2550 So. Parker Road Suite 300 NWREL Suite 500 Oak Brook, IL 101 S.W. Main Street Aurora, CO 80014 60523-1480 Suite 500 [email protected] (630) 571-4700 Portland, OR 97204-3297 (303) 337-0990 (800) 356-2735 [email protected] (303) 752-6388 (fax) (630) 571-4716 (fax) (503) 275-9562 (503) 275-0450 (fax) NCREL Donald L. Burger Monica Mann Nancy McMunn PREL PREL SERVE 1099 Alakea Street 1099 Alakea Street P.O. Box 5367 Suite 2500 Suite 2500 Greensboro, NC 27435 Honolulu, HI 96813 Honolulu, HI 96813 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] (910) 334-3211 (808) 441-1300 (808) 441-1300 (800) 755-3277 (808) 441-1385 (fax) (808) 441-1385 (fax) (910) 334-3268 (fax) Chris Ferguson Mahna Schwager Sharon Horn SEDL Coordinator OERI 211 East Seventh Street WestEd 555 New Jersey Ave. NW Austin, TX 78701-3281 730 Harrison Street Washington, DC 20208 [email protected] San Francisco, CA [email protected] (512) 476-6861 Ext. 281 94107-1242 mschwag@ (202) 219-2203 (512) 476-2286 (fax) wested.org (415) 615-3201 (415) 615-3200 (fax) INTRODUCTION PAGE V Acknowledgments With thanks to participating regional educational laboratory leaders for their support, encouragement, and resources. Many other individuals also contributed time and ideas during the production of Making Assessment Work for Everyone. Thanks to Mahna Schwager, Fredrika Baer and Jerome Shaw of WestEd; Suzie Boss and Kathy Petersen of NWREL; David van Broekhuizen of PREL; and Gerald D. Swick (associated with AEL) for their work on copyediting, production, formatting, and layout. Thanks to those authors allowing us to reprint their articles for Section VII: Rethinking Schools, David Sadker, and Debra Viadero. Special thanks to those individuals whose review of Making Assessment Work for Everyone provided insights, thoughtful suggestions, and external perspectives essential to the quality of our work: Judy Arter, Training Director, Assessment Training Institute, Portland, Oregon; Ruth Sutton, Consultant, Salford, England; Wendy Feerer, Valencia Elementary, Los Lunas, New Mexico; and Amada Pérez, Mar Vista Elementary School, Oxnard, California. PAGE VI MAKING ASSESSMENT WORK FOR EVERYONE Introduction We must change from a model that picks winners to one that will create winners. Harold Hodgkinson, Michigan and Its Educational System, 1989 aking Assessment Work for Everyone: How to Build on Student Strengths is intended to provide teachers with research information and practical ideas for modifying assessments M to make them more effective. Throughout the document, examples demonstrate how to make the process equitable and beneficial for students and teachers alike. For many, the term “diversity” initially evokes the thought of people different from themselves. So it’s not surprising that many classroom teachers, the majority still European American, may tend to equate diversity with ethnic minorities. Yet in reality, of course, the term simply refers to the variance within any group — a variance to which all members contribute. In the classroom, that includes those who have traditionally been considered a part of the “norm” or “mainstream.” Diversity encompasses differences in culture, language, ethnicity, gender, social class, age, physical attributes, learning styles, religion, locale, nationality, sexual orientation, and more. This publication is based on the recognition that such overlapping and interconnected sociocultural factors contribute greatly to students’ identity as learners and to their overall educational experience. If we, as teachers, are to be effective across the broad range of students we encounter, we must know how to accurately and equitably assess the learning that goes on in our classrooms. To do so, we must understand the base of experience and culture that students bring with them to the classroom, as well as how sociocultural factors play out in assessment. This publication specifically focuses on those aspects of diversity associated with culture and language, with some attention to gender and ethnicity. In a perfect world, we would know each individual learner’s