Friday, August 14, 2009

Topic: Authentic Assessments

10-second review: Suggests that teachers need to provide performance-based assessment to supplement the end-of-year standardized assessment to show what students can do that might not be evident in the standardized assessments.


Title: “Authentic Assessment for ELLs in the ELA Classroom.” M DelliCarpini. English Journal (May 2009), 116-119. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).


Summary: Although the author focuses on English Language Learners (ELLs), the same concept of providing performance-based (projects) assessments—what the students can do—would apply to all students. Don’t be satisfied with the end-of-the year standardized assessments without evidence to supplement the results of the standardized tests. Give students a chance to show what they can do in language arts/English through projects. Students could develop PowerPoint presentations, create YouTube films, create Web sites and blogs.


Comment
: This article makes a valid point. Don’t sit and wait, without any evidence, to be judged solely by standardized tests. Have students show what they can do. However, my problem is that people pay attention to the standardized tests. A statistic stands out. Will they pay attention to the supplemental project-based, authentic assessments? That’s another article which someone should write. RayS.

1 comment:

  1. I'm been there and done that with authentic assessments and they have their place. However, diagnostic assessments are the critical ones in ELL, ELA, and reading instruction.

    Diagnostic assessments are essential instructional tools for effective English-language Arts and reading teachers. However, many teachers resist using these tools because they can be time-consuming to administer, grade, record, and analyze. Some teachers avoid diagnostic assessments because these teachers exclusively focus on grade-level standards-based instruction or believe that remediation is (or was) the job of some other teacher. To be honest, some teachers resist diagnostic assessments because the data might induce them to differentiate instruction—a daunting task for any teacher. And some teachers resist diagnostic assessments because they fear that the data will be used by administrators to hold them accountable for individual student progress. Check out ten criteria for effective diagnostic ELA/reading assessments at http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/ten-criteria-for-effective-elareading-diagnostic-assessments/ and download free whole-class comprehensive consonant and vowel phonics assessments, three sight word assessments, a spelling-pattern assessment, a multi-level fluency assessment, six phonemic awareness assessments, a grammar assessment, and a mechanics assessment from the right column of this informative article.

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